Eclecticism

greek_coin"Eclecticism" is a name given to a group of ancient
philosophers who, from the existing philosophical beliefs, tried to
select the doctrines that seemed to them most reasonable, and out of
these constructed a new system (see Diogenes Laertius, 21). The name
was first generally used in the first century BCE. Stoicism and
Epicureanism had made the search for pure truth subordinate to the
attainment of practical virtue and happiness. Skepticism had denied
that pure truth was possible to discover. Eclecticism sought to reach
by selection the highest possible degree of probability, in the
despair of attaining to what is absolutely true. In Greek philosophy,
the best known Eclectics were the Stoics Panaetius (150 BCE.) and
Posidonius (75 BCE.). The New Academic, Carnaedes (155 BCE.), and
Philo of Larissa (75 BCE.). Among the Romans, Cicero, whose cast of
mind made him always doubtful and uncertain of his own attitude, was
thoroughly eclectic, uniting the Peripatetic, Stoic, and New Academic
doctrines, and seeking the probable (illud probabile). The same
general line was followed by Varro, and in the next century the Stoic
Seneca propounded a philosophical system largely based on eclecticism.

In the late period of Greek philosophy there appears an eclectic
system consisting of a compromise between the Neo-Pythagoreans and the
various Platonic sects. Still another school is that of Philo Iudaeus,
who at Alexandria, in the first century CE. interpreted the Old
Testament allegorically, and tried to harmonize it with selected
doctrines of Greek philosophy. Neo-Platonism, the last product of
Greek speculation, was also a fusion of Greek philosophy with eastern
religion. Its chief representatives were Plotinus (230 CE.),
Porphyrius (275 CE.), Iamblichus (300 CE.), and Proclus (450 CE.). The
desire of this school was to attain right relations between God and
humans, and was thus religious.