The Hedgehog and the Fox
The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History - Second Edition
The Hedgehog and the Fox is an essay by philosopher Isaiah Berlin that was published as a book in 1953.
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.
Berlin expands upon this idea to divide writers and thinkers into two categories: hedgehogs, who view the world through the lens of a single defining idea (examples given include Plato, Lucretius, Blaise Pascal, Marcel Proust and Fernand Braudel), and foxes, who draw on a wide variety of experiences and for whom the world cannot be boiled down to a single idea (examples given include Aristotle, Desiderius Erasmus, Johann Wolfgang Goethe).
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.
The fox is a cunning creature, able to devise a myriad of complex strategies for sneak attacks upon the hedgehog. Day in and day out, the fox circles around the hedgehog’s den, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. The fox looks like a sure winner. The hedgehog is a dowdier creature, looking like a genetic mix-up between a porcupine and a small armadillo. He waddles along, going about his simple day, searching for lunch and taking care of his home.
The fox waits in cunning silence at the juncture in the trail. The hedgehog, minding his own business, wanders right into the path of the fox. The fox thinks he has the advantage. He leaps out, bounding across the ground, lightning fast. The little hedgehog, sensing danger, looks up and thinks, “Here we go again. Will he ever learn?” Rolling up into a perfect little ball, the hedgehog becomes a sphere of shart spikes, pointing outward in all directions. The fox, bounding toward his prey, sees the hedgehog defense and calls off the attack. Retreating back to the forest, the fox begins to calculate a new line of attack. Each day, some version of this battle between the hedgehog and the fox takes place, and despite the greater cunning of the fox, the hedgehog always wins.
Foxes pursue many ends at the same time and see the world in all its complexity. They are “scattered or diffused, moving on many levels”, says Berlin, never integrating their thinking into one overall concept or unifying vision. On the other hand, hedgehogs simplify a complex world into a single organizing idea, a basic principle or concept that unifies and guides everything. It doesn’t matter how complex the world, a hedgehog reduces all challenges and dilemmas to simple - indeed almost simplistic - hedgehog ideas. For a hedgehog, anything that does not somehow relate to the hedgehog idea holds no relevance.
You want to know what separates those who make the biggest impact from all the others who are just as smart? They are hedgehogs.
Freud and the unconscious, Darwin and natural selection, Marx and class struggle, Einstein and relativity, Adam Smith and division of labor - they were all hedgehogs. They took a complex world and simplified it. They understand that the essence of profound insight is simplicity. What could be more simple that e = mc ^ 2? What could be simpler that the idea of the unconscious, organized into an id, ego, and superego? What could be more elegant than Adam Smith’s pin factory and “invisible hand”? The hedgehogs are not simpletons; they have a piercing insight that allows them to see through complexity and discern underlying patterns. They see what is essential, and ignore the rest.