The Hedgehog and the Fox-The Idea - by Pete Wung

The Curious Polymath

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The Hedgehog and the Fox-The Idea<br>Something that grew out of a simple quote from an ancient Greel poet has piqued me interest. "a Fox knows many things, but a Hedgehog knows one big thing." Attributed to the Greek Poet Archilochus

Pete Wung<br>May 12, 2024

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"a Fox knows many things, but a Hedgehog knows one big thing."<br>Attributed to the Greek Poet Archilochus<br>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.<br>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.<br>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.”<br>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.<br>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.<br>Hedgehogs<br>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<br>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.<br>The kind domain is where patterns repeat themselves. The sensory feedback is accurate...