Eclecticism

Eclecticism (Gr., eklegein—to pick out, to choose) is the tendency to combine, in mechanical fashion, ideas, theories, and conceptions which have originated in different schools and movements. At its best, eclecticism is an impossible attempt to create unity among disparate and irreconcilable philosophies, such as, for example, to combine “the best features” of materialism and idealism, or of Marx and Freud. At its worst it is a deliberate effort to confuse issues by indiscriminate borrowing which results in a hodgepodge of nonsense.