The Hedgehog and the Fox

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 original: ‘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.

But in his charming and serious letter Mr Bowman raises or implies a number of questions about pluralism, reality and knowledge, only some of which can be addressed here. Some readers have taken our article to suggest that Berlin supports a currently fashionable view – sometimes called ‘pluralism’ – that at any given time scientists possess a number of theories that are mutually inconsistent but that, in light of the available data, are equally plausible, and that they enjoy the luxury of picking and choosing among them, whether on grounds of simplicity or ideology or aesthetic considerations. We think this interpretation of Berlin is based on a misreading of his work. His qualified defence of Vico and Herder commits him, it is true, to the pluralistic thesis that diverse cultures may each have their own ways of interpreting human experience. But this pluralistic thesis applies within history and the humanities, and is not the extreme relativistic view we have just outlined. Berlin is not claiming certainty for Vico and Herder, but he does think their views are more plausible than those of better-known thinkers such as Descartes and Voltaire and their modern successors.