Comment by max_
17 days ago
“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
Berlin interprets this aphorism as articulating a profound distinction among thinkers, writers, and, more generally, human beings.
17 days ago
“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
Berlin interprets this aphorism as articulating a profound distinction among thinkers, writers, and, more generally, human beings.
It’s a cute aphorism, and useful sometimes, but when you look closely or from different angles hedgehogs often have foxy attributes, or vice versa. Some moments in a person’s life they look more like a fox, other times like a hedgehog. Perhaps the distinction applies better to specific ideas or to pieces of work than as a fixed essence of a person.
Einstein might seem like a quintessential hedgehog (surely the principle of relativity is a Big Hedgehog Idea if ever there was one). Then you learn he once invented a refrigerator. Tolstoy looks like an obvious fox earlier in his writing career, but increasingly a hedgehog towards the end of his life. And slightly less exaltedly, I feel like a fox in some contexts and a hedgehog in others. It might change day to day, or depend on who I’m talking too.
(People are complicated. All aphorisms are wrong, but some are useful I guess. I still quote this one sometimes.)