Q&A: The Hedgehog or the Fox?
The Hedgehog or the Fox?
Question
Hello,
Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between the hedgehog and the fox is well known: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” More generally, there are thinkers and philosophers who view the issues at hand through a one-dimensional lens (analytic-synthetic :-)), and there are thinkers who draw on a wide range of disciplines. Even professionally, Zvi Yavetz used to say that there are people in academia who take one subject and “stitch it together” from every possible angle, whereas others work on several subjects simultaneously in a broader way (though less meticulously).
In your opinion, when all is said and done, is there a decisive advantage to one over the other? I realize this is a broad question and that each method has its strengths, but do you nevertheless have any insights on the matter? And one more somewhat personal question: would you define yourself as a fox or a hedgehog in this context? I mean, it’s pretty clear that you’re an extreme hedgehog, but at the same time no small fox either… a fox-hedgehog…
Answer
I’ll leave this question to the scholars of my thought. I’ll just bring what Rabbi Menachem Froman, of blessed memory, wrote: the world is divided into two kinds of people—those who have only one thing to say, and those who have nothing to say.
Discussion on Answer
Indeed.
Honestly, even as I was writing the question I thought you’d quote Rabbi Froman (I’d read that in your name somewhere).
In any case, at its core the question is really about hedgehog-ness versus fox-ness as an ideal method and as a worldview. Whether a specific person is a hedgehog or a fox is less important (and as I write this, I’m guessing you’ll say this is too broad a question, there are advantages to both, it’s hard to give an exact formula, and so on 🙂