Eclecticism definition

The strain of the next three years' continuous work undermined his health and his eyesight, and he was compelled to retire from his professorship. During these years he had published works on Plato and Socrates and a history of philosophy (1875); but after his retirement he further developed his philosophical position, a speculative eclecticism through which he endeavoured to reconcile metaphysical idealism with the naturalistic and mechanical standpoint of science.

It is, however, certain that these fragments are mainly forgeries, attributable to the eclecticism of the 1st or 2nd century A.D., of which the chief characteristic was a desire to father later doctrines on the old masters.

A wave of eclecticism passed over all the Greek schools in the 1st century B.C. Platonism and scepticism had left undoubted traces upon the doctrine of such a reformer as Panaetius.

Since these combinations have often been as illogical as facile, "eclecticism" has generally acquired a somewhat contemptuous significance.