Michael Ignatieff1
‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog one big thing.’ Berlin made Archilochus’ line famous by using it as a metaphor to distinguish (I put it crudely) single-issue fanatics from those who welcome MacNeice’s ‘drunkenness of things being various’.2 Steven Lukes offers a typology of Berlinian hedgehogs and foxes and places Berlin within it as ‘an empiricist, realist, objectivist, anti-irrationalist, anti-relativist fox’. Fair enough, though the endless discussion of where precisely to place Berlin on the erinaceous/vulpine continuum is, to quote Berlin’s own description of the result of pressing the distinction too far, ‘artificial, scholastic, and ultimately absurd’.
Henry Hardy1
Berlin’s famous essay on Tolstoy, most noted (and cited) for its distinction between The Hedgehog and the Fox, is an analysis of Tolstoy’s vision of history; the essay’s power, its motivation and momentum, comes less from the opening metaphor than from Berlin’s insight into the struggle within Tolstoy between his own natural ‘sense of reality’2 – that of the ‘fox’ who ‘knows many things’ and is honestly aware of the multifarious facets of life in all their distinctness, and which resists all attempts at simplification and systematisation – and his desire for a simple, unified, harmonious vision of life as a whole. This irreconcilable conflict between instincts and aspirations, which Tolstoy strove and failed to resolve, ultimately made Tolstoy a tormented, tragic figure, as Berlin powerfully explains in the essay’s magnificent conclusion.
Joshua Cherniss and Henry Hardy3
[Berlin] loved categorising individuals in the spirit of a party game. […] most often there were two categories and two alone: either you were, when it came right down to it, a conservative or a radical, shall we say; or you were either a hedgehog or a fox; or you were either a bishop or a bookmaker – he was inexhaustibly fertile in his ‘two sorts of’ distinctions. It gave rise to a joke against him: ‘The world is divided into two sorts of people: those who think the world is divided into two sorts of people and those who don’t.’
Bryan Magee1
Perhaps the best-known phrase associated with Berlin’s view of the world and humanity is the one used as the title for his essay The Hedgehog and the Fox. It comes from a fragment of Greek poetry by Archilochus: ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.’ As he applied this saying to the major actors of history, Berlin was not praising one beast and condemning the other. Everyone combines both, although in different proportions and interactions. In that sense, the proverb doesn’t quite work as a bumper-sticker for life – which is appropriate, since Berlin was wary of slogans and nostrums. He did, however, have one big idea of his own – his own personal hedgehog – and it was (also appropriately) paradoxicaclass="underline" beware of big ideas, especially when they fall into the hands of political leaders.
Strobe Talbott1
AN EXCHANGE IN THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS2
Letter from John S. Bowman
The joint authors of the review of Isaiah Berlin’s writings refer to [an] oft-quoted phrase – in this instance, Berlin’s use of a fragment of Archilochus, the early Greek poet, for epigram [sc. epigraph], title and governing metaphor of his essay, ‘The Hedgehog and the Fox’.3 As quoted by Berlin, Archilochus is saying: ‘The fox knows many little things. The hedgehog knows one big thing.’ Berlin then proceeds to compare Tolstoy, the ‘fox’, to Dostoevsky, the ‘hedgehog’, and before he is through, the Archilochus epigram seems to be saying that there are two different ways of approaching or knowing reality – put quite simplistically, the way of the far-ranging generalist and the way of the concentrated specialist.
As I admit, that is oversimplifying Berlin’s subtle arguments, but it is not my intention to accuse Berlin of anything. I do not even know who is responsible for the translation of the Archilochus that he uses. My point is that it is this reading of the Archilochus epigram that has held sway since Berlin used it many years ago: when people refer to ‘the hedgehog and the fox’ these days, they are usually referring to this contrasting approach to the world. Furthermore, there is a general disposition to favour the way of the fox – although this may be entirely my own bias. For instance, the reviewers of Berlin refer to his ‘pluralism’ and other aspects of our Western–liberal tradition that Berlin so epitomises, in a way that suggests we all are better for knowing a lot of things.
Again, that may be my own prejudice. At the very least we may allow that Berlin’s translation – and his thesis – award equal status to these two animals. Yet when we look closer at the original Archilochus, or rather at some other translations, the issue is not so clear. To begin with, ‘thing’ tends to become ‘trick’, and the ‘one big thing’ that Berlin’s hedgehog knows is how to curl itself into a ball to escape its enemies – including, presumably, the fox. There is thus the implied, if not explicit, suggestion that although the fox knows many tricks, it is the hedgehog with one ‘big trick’ that ends up defeating the fox. In this reading, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky would not just be taking different routes to reality: they would be in conflict – and Dostoevsky would outfox Tolstoy!
This version of the Archilochus is given its most committed translation by Guy Davenport when he first translates the original with what he states are the literal seven words: ‘Fox knows many, / Hedgehog one / Solid trick.’1 Davenport then provides an alternate translation that he claims expresses the true thrust of the originaclass="underline" ‘Fox knows / Eleventythree / Tricks and still / Gets caught: / Hedgehog knows / One but it / Always works.’ Not all translators go this far, but others do imply that (1) the hedgehog’s trick is superior to the fox’s many tricks, and (2) the hedgehog’s trick may actually defeat the fox.
Nor is that the end of the problem. It has been suggested by at least one (hedgehoggy? foxy?) student of this matter that although the hedgehog may roll itself into a ball to elude the fox, it has been observed in nature that a fox may roll said hedgehog down a slope into water, where the hedgehog will either drown or be forced ashore to be killed by the fox. Your reviewers of Berlin may be hinting at this when they write that ‘an ironist would remark’ that the one big thing that the hedgehogs of this world know is ‘that there is not, or should not be, any hedgehog’s thesis about human affairs to expound’. (Note that it is the fox’s way, again, that is being favoured.)
But I am willing to call a halt at such convolutions. My question is really quite straightforward: Do any readers of this journal have any solid thoughts to offer on this topic? As to why we all should be concerned, it is because the Berlin version of the Archilochus is referred to several times a year in journals such as this – in the sense, that is, that there are two different ways of knowing reality, not fighting enemies, and that both ways are of at least equal value. Certainly we should all want to know what this allusion is based on.1
Whatever the response, I do not expect ever to see the end of this (mis)representation of Archilochus […].
John S. Bowman
Northampton, Massachusetts
From the reply by Jonathan Lieberson and Sidney Morgenbesser
Mr Bowman seems to be correct that the Archilochean fragment is compatible with diverse interpretations, as several Greek scholars of our acquaintance have assured us. Indeed, an allusion to the ancient secular tradition of ‘practical knowledge’ (or, better, the cunning of knowing how to ‘get on’ in the world) seems to be contained in the fragment, which would suggest that the hedgehog does indeed ‘compete’ with the fox and does know the one ‘solid’ trick that the fox does not – as the translations of Guy Davenport (cited by Mr Bowman) and François Lasserre would indicate.2 Thus, we fear the most that can be said about the Archilochean fragment is that there is no one transparently correct interpretation of it – only many different risky ones.