"a Fox knows many things, but a Hedgehog knows one big thing."
Attributed to the Greek Poet Archilochus
This quote has been swimming in my head for many years, the meaning has interested me all that time. Of course, I looked for the meaning of the quote as it pertains to my life and through the prism of my experiences. As I examined my experiences and the contexts of the experiences, the meaning of the quote expanded as I added the minutiae of my experiences to my understanding of the quote. As my mini-review of how others have appropriated the quote and applied it to their particular purposes will show, it is a limber and flexible idea that applies under many circumstances.
The philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote a long essay (Berlin, 2013) about the Hedgehog and the Fox, using his essay as a platform to discuss Tolstoy’s stature in Russian literature and as a historian. While he was complimentary of Tolstoy as a writer, he was less complementary, indeed he was critical of Tolstoy as a historian — critiquing the historical veracity of Tolstoy’s War and Peace — his essay made the metaphor of the Hedgehog and the Fox comparing the two types of thinkers a common theme for many thinkers throughout history. His conclusion is that Tolstoy was a Fox by temperament, but Tolstoy’s belief is that everyone should be a Hedgehog.
My first exposure to the Hedgehog and the Fox came from reading about Philip Tetlock’s study regarding forecasting. The original mention was in Philip Tetlock’s Expert Political Judgement (Tetlock, 2017). He had discovered in his studies that the generalists — Foxes — far outperformed the specialists — the Hedgehogs — when it comes to forecasting the future while working with limited information. This prompted discussions and speculation amongst many as to why this was so; it seems counterintuitive as our society has always prized the specialist over the generalist. It is revealing that the common and often used refrain: “Jack of all trades, master of none” seem at first to belittle the generalists; but the full quotation actually asserts the opposite: “Jack of all trades, master of none, but better than a master of one.”
Tetlock also proposed that there is an inverse relationship between experts’ regard for themselves as forecasters and their forecasting results, i.e. the greater their confidence in their forecasting ability, the worse they are as forecaster. The Dunning-Kruger effect prevails in this instance. According to Tetlock it was the integrators, those that have knowledge in multiple disparate areas, performed better than experts in forecasting. Indeed, specialization did not bear fruit in forecasting with uncertainty, Tetlock asserts that breadth of knowledge in the individual is more important than deep depth of knowledge. It is therefore important to take facts from specialists, because they will have the in-depth knowledge but not take their opinions as there is a lack of breadth in the specialists knowledge.
David Epstein in his book Range: Why Generalist Triumph in a Specialist World (Epstein, 2019) Made similar comparisons between Specialist (Hedgehogs) and Generalists (Foxes). Epstein’s book title clues us in to his purpose in introducing the concept of the Hedgehog and the Fox. The comparison below was compiled by me after culling Epstein’s book. It describes the differences between the Hedgehog and the Fox as per Epstein viewpoint.
Hedgehogs
Formulaic solution to all ill-defined problems. Everything is a nail.
Especially bad at long term predictions.
Actual outcomes did not matter to the Hedgehogs, right or wrong, they always claim to be right.
Hedgehogs sees simple and deterministic rules of cause and effect dictated by their area of expertise.
Hedgehogs are necessary, they produce knowledge.
Foxes
Not devoted to one explanation.
Better at long term predictions.
Foxes are smart people with wide ranging interests:
Are good collaborators-Willing to share information.
Practices active open-mindedness
Sees ideas as hypothesis needed testing
Search for why ideas are wrong.
Look at new evidence
Roam freely, listen carefully, consume omnivorously
It is not what they think, it is how they think.
Theory that fit the evidence, not the evidence that fit the theory.
Sees complexity. Sees cause and effect as probabilistic.
Can adjust the ideas.
Can put experience aside completely.
Further, Epstein introduced the effects of varying domains on the Hedgehogs and Foxes decision making process; he calls the domains: the Kind and the Wicked.
The kind domain is where patterns repeat themselves. The sensory feedback is accurate and immediate. This is the domain where deliberate practices and the 10,000-hour rule dominate. Experience is a faithful guide. The system is linear and is in a steady or static state.
The wicked domain is where the rules are unclear or incomplete. The feedback is either delayed or inaccurate, or both. Each situation may not repeat nor are there obvious patterns. Experience will most often reinforce the wrong response in a wicked domain. The system is nonlinear or is in a transient or dynamic state.
The difference in domains identifies the main reason Hedgehogs and Fox’s decision-making process is a function of their respective views of reality.
Hedgehogs’ decision-making tends to ignore context and domain because their view of reality is that reality is static and unchanging. They do not believe that randomness can affect the results of their decisions, but they will always collect more information to buttress their initial decision.
Foxes’ decision-making values the nuances of context and domain because their view of reality is that reality is dynamic and ever changing. They believe that randomness can and will affect the results of their decisions, but they are always collecting more information as they actively make decisions extemporaneously.
Epstein’s book examines why Foxes are better at making decisions in wicked situations, how their ability to account for any possible circumstances, considering all the varying contexts make their decision better, more often, than the Hedgehog’s in a wicked domain even though the world that we all live in has been designed and built by and for the Hedgehogs.
On the other hand, the Hedgehog’s approach is ideal for the kind domain. It turns out to be more efficient, less time-consuming and does not introduce chaos and confusion. The Fox in a kind domain will be seen as inefficient in time and resource allocation because they will try to answer questions about uncertainties where none exists.
Epstein’s book posits that because Hedgehogs are better in the kind environment and Foxes are better in a wicked environment, it is best to have a diversity of people solving problems, as Hedgehogs in a wicked domain is a disaster waiting to happen because rote application of procedural processes could exacerbate the nonlinear and dynamic state of the system. This is the center of his book’s argument.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb made a similar argument in Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder (Taleb, 2012). Even though Taleb did not delve into Hedgehogs and Foxes, he did discuss, in clear details, the differences in decision making mindsets when dealing with kind and wicked domains. He gives examples illustrating the futility and disastrous results of applying procedural solutions in a rote manner to a wicked and complicated problem.
Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise (Silver, 2012) also used Tetlock’s research results in his own way. This table can be found in Silver’s book, albeit in a more descriptive form.
Hedgehogs
Specialized: Sees everything as a big problem. Homerun hitters
Stalwart: All-in. Adjust with facts.
Stubborn: Lots of resulting
Order-Seeking: Simple governing functions
Confident
Ideological: Believe that there is a grand theory or strategy
Does worse with more credentials.
Dependent on expertise
Deterministic world view
Facts hurt the Hedgehog because Hedgehogs fit the facts to the deterministic thought.
Foxes
Multidisciplinary: Takes many different options. Whiteyball.
Adaptable: New approach or multiple approaches
Self-critical: Easily acknowledge mistakes
Tolerant of Complexity, unsolvable or unpredictable
Cautious: Believe in probability and quantities.
Empirical: Extemporaneous, adjustable.
Does better with better and more experience
Dependent on Experience
Uncertain of Stochastic World view
Facts help the Fox because Foxes fits their changing thoughts to the facts.
Embrace uncertainty,
Constantly learning,
Maneuvers incrementally,
Is agile
A caveat: in the very first row for both Hedgehogs and Foxes, the allusion to baseball is mine, comparing the Hedgehog mindset to having the homerun hitter mindset, always going for the big play; whereas the Fox’s mindset to playing Whiteyball, in a homage to Whitey Herzog, a very successful baseball manager with the St. Louis Cardinals. Herzog fielded teams of singles hitting, speedy, base stealers, patiently scoring points in increments.
Silver’s subject was the media and those who work as pundits and influencers in mass media. His point was that since the modern world is full of uncertainties and is changing rapidly dynamics. Hedgehogs are not to be trusted to make decisions because they only know one big thing, they have one big hammer, and everything looks like a nail. His argument goes back to Tetlock’s point about how experts or specialists tend to be bad forecasters.
The eminent historian John Lewis Gaddis also invoked the Hedgehog and Fox metaphor when he wrote his On Grand Strategy (Gaddis, 2018). The comparison is once again mine.
Hedgehogs
Depend on deduction derived from grand schemes
More hubristic
Arrogant
One big Explanation
More impatient
Digs deeper into beliefs
Always have a plan and always in dogged pursuit of that plan.
Uses scorched earth methods
Positive liberty is
Totalitarian
Certain
Flattening topologies
Foxes
"Stitching together of diverse sources of information"
More discursive
"No thought is above criticism"
Explanations with lots of qualification
More self-critical
Better at figuring out contradictory dynamics of evolving situations
Circumspect about forecasting
Better at recalling mistakes
Less prone to rationalize
Good at updating beliefs
Better at discussing realistic probabilities.
Always adjust and adapt rapidly on the fly. No plan is sacred and unchangeable.
Uses lively compasses to adjust
Negative liberty is
Unsure of future
Flexible enough to adjust
Respect varying topologies
Able to accept inconsistencies
Anti-fragile
Able to accept limits
Able to lower expectations
Able to seek attainable ends
Able to depend on experience
Able to translate theory to correction
In this case, his discussion hewed more closely to Isaiah Berlin’s original essay when examining leaders throughout history and used the Hedgehog and Fox metaphor to make his case for categorizing leaders as one or the other. The tile of his book refers to those leaders who are Hedgehogs, as they will use the Grand Strategy as the center of their decision making, no matter what the context or mitigating circumstances reveals to them as time goes on.
More recently, I happened upon this article as I was surfing the web. The author Randy Borum published this article The Fox and the Hedgehog: Contrasting Approaches to Anticipating the Environment in Military Strategy Magazine (Borum, 2014). The comparison is once again mine.
In general
Hedgehogs
Focused
Deep knowledge
Single area or frame
Everything about something (1 thing)
Foxes
Diffuse
Breadth
Multi-frame
Something about everything
Strategically
Hedgehogs
Pre-Determined
Deal with what they have.
Foxes
Adaptive
Look for info if not enough
Intellectual Values
Hedgehogs
Accumulate knowledge
Need to know more than the competition
Foxes
Focus on Learning
Find and apply new ways to acquire knowledge
Forecast and Foreknowledge
Hedgehogs
Confident
Stick to a (THE) conclusion
Foxes
Diffident
Recognize and appreciate uncertainty
Implementation
Hedgehogs
Set the course and go.
Foxes
Incremental
Watching for changes
Adaptable
The focus of Borum’s article is to describe the necessary qualities of a good leader on the battlefield, which is overwhelming the qualities of the generalist, or the Fox.
Finally, there is one significant cheerleader for the Hedgehog, and that is the author and business strategist Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great. Here is the link to Collin’s web page devoted completely to the virtues of the Hedgehog. (Collins, 2024)
This excerpt from Collins page states his belief in Hedgehogs clearly:
A simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of three circles: 1) what you are deeply passionate about, 2) what you can be the best in the world at, and 3) what best drives your economic or resource engine. Transformations from good to great come about by a series of good decisions made consistently with a Hedgehog Concept, supremely well executed, accumulating one upon another, over a long period of time.
Given Collin’s focus, essentially his third point on the list, isn’t surprising. He opted for the Hedgehog, because Collins assumes that decisions are always made in a kind environment, that the single mindedness of the Hedgehog is the best approach to all situations and contexts, which disagrees with the other authors and disagrees with the dynamic world that we live in. Ironically, Collins is modelling the main Hedgehog tendency as he assumes that reality is devoid of uncertainties. This is not to say that he is wrong, he is absolutely correct if and only if we only live happily in a kind world.
This is the literature that I have studied to answer the question: what does the comparison between Hedgehogs and Foxes mean? For myself in terms of my personal philosophy? In terms of how I should pursue my interests and knowledge? How does this dichotomy help or harm my decision making? What is it that can I get out of studying this dichotomy?
As evidenced by the amount of references I found after just a cursory search, the comparison between the Hedgehog and the Fox goes beyond just a comparison between the specialist and the generalist. Each of the authors brought their own focus on their interested milieu and each of them defined the Hedgehog and the Fox for their own purposes, all the while hewing generally to the evident theme of Archilochus’ quote. The quote is ambiguous enough to allow for all the different kinds of interpretations, which serves to enrich and expand the meaning.
One conclusion that I did come to — which is not much of a conclusion — is that I am not and will never be at the polar ends of the comparison: I will never be a pure Hedgehog, nor will I ever be a pure Fox; I believe that it is impossible to ask of anyone.
Indeed, this discussion, proposed in terms of the classic either/or dichotomy, is misleading. We all live within the broad spectrum between the Hedgehog and the Fox, we are a complicated mix of both Hedgehog and Fox; we would not be able to function in the real world otherwise.
The point of all the authors, except for Jim Collins, is that we mostly behave as if we are Hedgehogs. We are focused on one big thing, and we become experts in one big thing, much to the detriment to our intrinsic interests and to our society because we are all blindered into believing in the static and unchanging world when the real world is dynamic and ever changing.
Which brings me to the idea of investigating myself, my background, and my roles in this world for reasons to be more Fox like. Partially because of a need to rebel against the societal pressures to be a Hedgehog, and mostly because I enjoy being a Fox, someone who is curious about many things, a polymath. I decided to explore this Hedgehog/Fox duality and what it means for all of my interests, and so I shall. Please stay tuned.
Berlin, I. (2013). The Hedgehog and the Fox. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
Borum, R. (2014, October 1). The Fox and the Hedgehog: Contrasting Approaches to Anticipating the Environment. Military Strategy Magazine, 3(4), pp. 30-33.
Collins, J. (2024). THE HEDGEHOG CONCEPT. Retrieved May 2, 2024, from Jim Collins Author site: https://www.jimcollins.com/concepts/the-Hedgehog-concept.html
Epstein, D. (2019). Range, Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. New York : Riverhead Books.
Gaddis, J. L. (2018). On Grand Strategy. New York City: Penguin Random House.
Silver, N. (2012). The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don't. New York City: Penguin Press.
Taleb, N. N. (2012). Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder . NYC: Random House.
Tetlock, P. E. (2017). Expert Political Judgement. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.