ECLECTICISM. – From ἐκλέγω (I select), it is, in general, any philosophical and scientific approach that chooses doctrines from various and opposing systems, coordinating them into a new synthesis. It has sometimes been confused with syncretism (from συγκρίνω, “I mix”), which is, if anything, its inferior form.
The term is also used in the history of religions, but it is more properly employed in philosophy. Rare among the Greeks, and in surviving writings only in an aggregative and adverbial form, when applied to philosophy it is found in a single text by Diogenes Laertius (3rd century A.D.), who mentions (Lives, Prooemium, 21) an ἐκλεκτὴ αἵρεσις (eclectic school) founded by Potamon of Alexandria, a contemporary, according to the Suda, of Augustus. An eclectic school of medicine is named in a text attributed to Galen. It is entirely unknown whether *eclecticus* was used by the Latins (cf. Thesaurus linguae Latinae, Leipzig 1900 ff.). It reappears from the 16th century onward, though sporadically and without attaining a precise technical meaning. Reinhold (1758–1829) criticizes a philosophical stance that his followers call eclectic because it allows complete freedom... to select from all possible systems whatever each individual writer believes can be reconciled with ordinary human understanding (Über das Fundament des philosophischen Wissens; Jena 1791).
Greater concreteness is given to eclecticism by Cousin (q.v.). He launched his eclecticism in the opening lecture of his 1818 course (delivered in December 1817); he likely encountered the term among the Germans, and the first germ of the idea may have come from Leibniz. Two periods are to be distinguished in Cousin’s eclecticism: the first, lasting at least until 1830, is not only a method of inquiry but also a system; the second, clearly attested from 1853 onward, is denied as a system and survives only as a method. After Cousin, the term eclecticism, less used by his followers, is frequent among his opponents, who treat it as equivalent to almost syncretism, or simply as a synonym for spiritualism. It has, however, passed symbolically into the general history of philosophy to designate a non-original philosophical thought that, lacking the guidance of deep and firm metaphysical principles, believes it can discourse solely on the criterion of common sense regarding what is true in opposing systems.
When eclecticism is of this kind, whether as a system or as a method, it inevitably lapses into syncretism: “I believe,” Rosmini rightly wrote in 1837, “that it would be difficult for Mr. Cousin to avoid the charge of that syncretism which is certainly different from eclecticism, though it is not difficult to derive it from the latter” (Lettera al dott. Luigi Gentili, in Opere, ed. naz., II, Rome 1934, p. 380). When, however, the selection is a coordination of various elements drawn from different systems and is done on the basis of solid and deep principles that serve as a direct norm for a new synthesis, it may be said that in substance eclecticism is surpassed. Indeed, if eclecticism were to be defined as the search for and assimilation, insofar as it is recognized as correct, of the thought of others, then no great philosopher could fail to be called eclectic. In the first case, then, one practices eclecticism but not genuine philosophy; in the second, genuine philosophy but not eclecticism.
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**E. IN ART.** – In art, eclecticism denotes a concept concerning different periods and personalities. It has been improperly applied to the Carracci (q.v.) to indicate a historically determined pictorial movement.
Meanwhile, the famous sonnet by Agostino Carracci, in praise of Niccolò dell’Abate, is probably a forgery by Malvasia; nor did the Carracci themselves proceed from a programmatic line as precise as it was artistically unattainable, such as that indicated in the sonnet: “Whoever would make a good painter seeks and desires / to have the drawing of Rome at hand / the movement, with the shading, of Venice / and the worthy colors of Lombardy / Michelangelo’s terrible path / the true naturalism of Titian / Correggio’s pure and sovereign style / and Raphael’s just symmetry / Tibaldi’s decorum and foundation / the learned Primaticcio’s invention / and a touch of grace from Parmigianino...” From a theoretical standpoint, the Carracci’s position is merely critical and not artistic, and thus their eclecticism lacks a particular foundation. In reality, an artist who rapidly absorbs and assimilates pictorial influences, without lacking personality, may in general be defined as eclectic. In this sense, even a great painter like Raphael has been an eclectic.
On the other hand, the demand for an eclectic stance in the artist already appears as a clear fact in the artistic theory of Mannerism, notably in Armenini (*Veri precetti della pittura*, I, Milan 1520, p. 74), where he discusses the doctrine of *maniera*, which consists in knowing and imitating the best efforts of the most excellent masters—that is, the possibility of achieving the heights of art by drawing the best from the achievements of the Renaissance greats.
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