This chapter focuses on eclecticism as a face of political moderation. Starting from the definition of eclecticism given by Michel de Montaigne in his Essays, it shows that eclecticism has important implications for the ways in whicb we conceive of our political attachments. It then considers the justification of eclecticism given by Daniel Bell in his book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976) and compares it to the eclecticism at the heart of the fusionist movement initiated by Frank Meyer in the 1960s. Finally, it presents eclecticism as a way to avoid any form of “blueprint thinking.”

This brief chapter introduces the topic of radical moderation and highlights the core beliefs at the heart of the book.

Pufendorf’s method comprised three distinguishable strains: a humanistic deployment of diverse sources, especially from classical antiquity; an eclectic demand to choose and fashion such materials anew; and a scientific insistence on observational evidence, systemic coherence, and procedural rigor. Each of these resisted disciplinary capture, authoritarian control, and subservience to extraneous, extra-philosophical interests – appealing instead to a rational and thus potentially universal audience. In Pufendorf the third strain became dominant and involved the others as auxiliary procedures. Like other early modern instances of “mathematical” or scientific method, it aspired – in principle, and within its characteristic domain of free, human action – to probative certitude and intellectual authority while remaining exposed to challenges and demands for articulation, thereby claiming the participatory assent of other, unbiased reasoners. Despite eschewing metaphysical foundations in favor of merely empirical supports, it claimed the peculiar force or authority animating explanatory and normative legality alike. It was, in short, rational and empirical at the same time, attempting to control the pull of these counter-tendencies toward more abstract, vacuous, and irreconcilable extremes. This aim was achieved by combining broadly prudential analyses of both human and divine intent, nourished by a realistic or pragmatic assessment of historical (actual and recorded) experience.

The accident of parentage; impinging cultural, social, and political forces; unbidden encounters, events, and opportunities: these are not under a composer’s control, but can have a momentous impact on personal and compositional development. Consequence is not, however, inevitable. So for those trying to gain insight into a composer’s world, his or her decision-making is more important than mere factual circumstance: how they respond to the environment of which they are a part, and, not least, the myriad decisions undertaken in the creation of a compositional persona and in the course of actual composition. This chapter surveys the compositional environment in which Britten made his entrance. It took Britten a while to find the most powerful and ambitious means of employing simplicity, in pursuit of a complexity formed from the density and quality of relationships rather than the mere overlaying, entanglement, or busyness of complicatedness. This quest is traced with reference to some key works, while noting that Britten’s eclecticism refreshes a strong individual voice to the end of his career.

Natural philosophy was often seen as a means of reading the “Book of Nature” written by God’s creative act, and therefore must be seen against the background of religion. Older commentary has examined how post-Reformation confessional divides affected the moral and spiritual project of “Physico-Theology.” Some intellectual historians have suggested that there was something that could be described as the confessionalization of early modern physics. Other intellectual historians have argued that the homogenizing pressure of confessionalization was much less successful, both in popular culture and in natural philosophy. This chapter aims to advance these controversies by contrasting general confessionalization claims with case studies that examine whether and how particular contents of natural philosophy were shaped by theological concerns specific to different Christian denominations. These case studies analyze the influence theories of special providence had on cosmology, the problems that doctrines of the Eucharist raised for matter theories, the persistence of moral interpretations of natural particulars in natural histories, and the methodological foundations of eclectic natural philosophies. The upshot of these considerations is that confessionalization led to a much lower degree of homogeneity in natural philosophy than has been supposed.

A study of Lagos’s religious marketplace is incomplete without paying attention to the upsurge of religio-spiritual movements such as the Grail Movement and Eckankar since the 1970s. These movements are eclectic in nature because they mix Islam, Christianity, indigenous traditions, ‘Eastern’ religions, as well as non-religious sources. Chapter 6 addresses the question why these movements, which are exogenous to Nigeria and differ radically from mainstream religion, could attract an increasing membership in Lagos. I argue that the answer to this question lies in what van Dijk (2015) calls the ‘too-muchness’ of Pentecostalism. While Chrislam, NASFAT, and Ijo Orunmila have capitalized on Pentecostalism’s spatial appropriation of Lagos by copying Pentecostal styles and strategies, the Grail Movement and Eckankar expanded because they turned away from Pentecostalism and offered an alternative that promised individual spiritual liberation in the here and now. Today their ‘otherness’ attracts especially the newly emerging middle class, who are looking for ways to distinguish themselves from ‘dogmatic’ mainstream believers. Whereas for the aspiring middle class shifting allegiances from institutionalized religion to new religio-spiritual movements is a means to differentiate themselves, for others boundary making is a way to manage religious pluralism.

After introducing Porphyry’s commentary, this chapter asks how Porphyry saw himself at the time of writing. Was it as a ‘Neoplatonist’ and pupil of Plotinus as usually presumed? Does he write as a mathematician and scientist or as a philosopher? Assuming he sees harmonics as a natural interest of the philosopher, what sort of philosopher does he represent himself as? He could claim to be embarking upon a ‘Pythagorean’ task rather than a ‘Platonist’ one, though the two were hard to distinguish in this era. Either would involve the Timaeus. His persona may have a bearing on the work’s date. The long discussion on logos and sensation is examined for indications of Porphyry’s sources and allegiance. This epistemology is distinctive, and the most distinctive features are independent of Plotinus. The section’s eclecticism and polymathy make it hard to associate with a single school, like Thrasyllus, Porphyry’s only named authority here. Porphyry’s persona is in fact complex, as much Pythagorean as Platonist, with an early dating feasible, allowing for debts to Longinus and to the mathematician Demetrius rather than to Plotinus. A Pythagorean’s interest in harmonics is natural.

In 1956, Philip C. Jessup, in Transnational Law, defined transnational law (TL) as “all law which regulates actions or events that transcend national frontiers. Both public and private international law are included, as are other rules which do not wholly fit into such standard categories.” The book, defining the object of study, crystalized over the next generation as a field of study, if not quite yet a methodology and not yet a discipline. Philip Jessup’s definition of TL was formulated within the horizon of a particular phase of disciplinary engagement, which has been broadly characterized as postwar “pragmatism,” though this category hides as much as it reveals.3 The current book arrives at a different moment, and if future intellectual historians take us at our word, they will characterize us with a similarly imprecise term: interdisciplinary. This epilogue will diverge in its task from what the essays above have done so ably: investigating TL as an account of regulatory actors, norms, and processes discoverable in the world. It will open a window instead upon TL as a project for producing knowledge.4 This means viewing the book through the lens of its purposes, motives, and habits in producing TL as a kind of knowledge. It also means recognizing that the particular image of TL captured in the present book is highly specific, implicitly opposed to other conceptions, and that is true even if representatives of every faction are present and accounted for.