Name: The hedgehog and the fox
ISBN: 9781400846634

The hedgehog and the fox

"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." This ancient Greek aphorism, preserved in a fragment from the poet Archilochus, describes the central thesis of Isaiah Berlin's masterly essay on Leo Tolstoy and the philosophy of history, the subject of the epilogue to War and Peace. Although there have been many interpretations of the adage, Berlin uses it to mark a fundamental distinction between human beings who are fascinated by the infinite variety of things and those who relate everything to a central, all-embracing system. Applied to Tolstoy, the saying illuminates a paradox that helps explain his philosophy of history: Tolstoy was a fox, but believed in being a hedgehog. One of Berlin's most celebrated works, this extraordinary essay offers profound insights about Tolstoy, historical understanding, and human psychology. This new edition features a revised text that supplants all previous versions, English translations of the many passages in foreign languages, a new foreword in which Berlin biographer Michael Ignatieff explains the enduring appeal of Berlin's essay, and a new appendix that provides rich context, including excerpts from reviews and Berlin's letters, as well as a startling new interpretation of Archilochus's epigram.

What Hacker News says

paultopiaNov 2018

Those interested in the generalist/specialist debate could do worse than to read Isaiah Berlin's classic essay on the subject, The Hedgehog and the Fox: https://www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk/crag/files/2016/06/the_hedgeh...

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maxweylandtJan 2025

Somewhat related: Isaiah Berlin's "The Hedgehog and the Fox". From wiki:

> hedgehogs ... view the world through the lens of a single defining idea, and foxes, who draw on a wide variety of experiences and for whom the world cannot be boiled down to a single idea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog_and_the_Fox

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thadkOct 2024

This short piece reminds me of a thread about the The Hedgehog and the Fox essay (1953) https://twitter.com/strangeattracto/status/13506001425970544...

> The idea of code switching between multiple traditions doesn’t seem to occur to a person who is fixated on The One True Aesthetic.

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throw4847285Oct 2024

There is an Isaiah Berlin essay called The Hedgehog and the Fox. In it he divides artists/philosophers into two categories: foxes and hedgehogs. It is inspired by a fragment of ancient Greek poetry which reads, "the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one great thing." In other words, some great thinkers looked at the world through the lens of one big idea, and others can't be easily reduced.

Two major caveats. The first is that Berlin never wanted the essay to be taken all that seriously. To him, it was an intellectually parlor game. But if TvTropes is any indication, people are addicted to classifying things into simplistic categories, so the fox and hedgehog game took off.

Second, the rest of the essay actually challenges the binary by focusing on Leo Tolstoy, an unimaginably creative thinker and writer who, according to Berlin, was a fox by nature but wanted to be a hedgehog.

Why did I share all of that? Well, without taking the categories too seriously I do think some people are more foxy by nature and others are more hedgehog-esque. I've always thought of myself as a fox (which to be honest, might limit me), and I had no interest in focusing on a single subject in school. At worst, I'm a dilettante who can have a surface level conversation about any intellectual topic at a party. At best, I can muster up a real enthusiasm about trying something entirely new.

I say all this not just because I'm running on 4 hours of sleep, but also because I think foxes get a bad rap. Not everybody should strive to be Ramanujan, because it isn't in everybody's temperament.

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5040Oct 2023

>The hedgehog/fox classification isn't mine, it is Philip Tetlock's

I know it from Isaiah Berlin, but it looks like he took it from Archilochus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog_and_the_Fox

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sebmellenMay 2021

My answer is it depends on what you want to do. If you want to work at a FAANG, specialization is the name of the game. Find a niche like time-series databases or something, and work on that.

If you want to work at a smaller company or found a startup, being a generalist is a great asset. It also puts you closer to the top of the hierarchy if you can make yourself invaluable to the business/yourself by being a “Swiss army knife.” By that, I mean everyone wants you around, because you can probably solve upwards of 90% of the problems that arise.

Of course, you can’t be a full generalist, you will end up having some language or tech stack you’re more adept in. That’s fine. You’ll probably end up being “T” shaped.

But to reiterate: if you want to make good money and you love a niche topic, specialize in it. Then go and work at a company with the scale/needs for that specific niche. Otherwise, if you’re a generalist, you’re better equipped to handle a vast multitude of problems, build initial solutions, and then hand them off to specialists as your company/project grows.

Edit: You might also just be a fox and not a hedgehog — that’s what I would consider myself. An interesting read: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog_and_the_Fox.

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