Eclecticism can be used to refer to two phenomena. On the one hand, eclecticism is a philosophical current of very particular characteristics. On the other hand, the concept of eclecticism can be used to designate a way of life, of thought, of action that follows in a certain sense the characteristics of that philosophical current, but that does not do so in a conscious way or linked to it, but rather it is a phenomenon.
It is important to establish that the word eclecticism comes from the Greek term eklegein, which means to choose or select. This is how the notion is built that eclecticism is what has to do with the choice and selection of different elements to create something new that does not adapt to a single or pre-existing reality. Therefore, it was eclecticism as a philosophical current that was interested in selecting touches and aspects of different philosophical currents when considering that several of these aspects could be interesting and that they should not be mutually exclusive. In this sense, we can say that eclecticism (which emerged in ancient Greece around the second century BC) was interested in uniting some elements of great philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle,stoicism and metaphysics. In this way, this philosophical current did not establish dogmas around exclusive and closed ideas, but established connections between existing ones so that something new and unique emerged from them. This philosophical current would continue to exist for a long time, even in the Modern Age, although always adding new ideas.
In more general and practical terms, eclecticism is understood as a way of acting, thinking, living that represents the same thing as this philosophical current, that is, a permanent search to unite ideas, forms, figures of different types so that Being transformed into something new and unique. Therefore, it is common to speak of eclecticism as an artistic style in which there is not a single look, limited simply to what the author contributes, but there is a union of many elements (sometimes different from each other) that generate some kind of emotion or shock in the viewer and that dazzle to transform into something so special and unique.
The term "eclectic" is used in the History of Philosophy in an ambiguous and often oscillating and non-rigorous way. Nowadays it is common to call certain Greek and Roman thinkers (some Academy philosophers, some Stoics and Cicero) eclectic, and also another series of French and Spanish thinkers of the XLX century who represent a moment of lack of originality in speculation and that resort to constituting a selection of diverse doctrines. Also among the eclectics it is necessary to study the Spanish and American philosophers of the s. XVII and XVIII that try to reconcile the Cartesian doctrines, first, and Lockian later, with elements of the scholastic tradition; Gaos has even spoken of a peculiar "Hispanic American eclecticism."
Today we are used to restricting the voice much more. in terms of usage to essentially refer to a particular system or type of system. Normally we reserve it to designate the concordat or the harmonizing attitude of certain thinkers; there must be a minimum of synthesis in them. When there is a simple fusion of heterogeneous elements, it is preferable to speak of syncretism: this is generally done in references to authors who join religious and philosophical elements.
