Jurisprudence for Foxes
Archilochus is supposed to have said that ‘the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing’. No one knows what Archilochus meant. But we know what Isaiah Berlin meant in quoting him.1 Berlin offered the fragment as a metaphor for two types of thinkers: those who have one leading idea...
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| Format: | Journal article |
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Routledge
2015
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| Summary: | Archilochus is supposed to have said that ‘the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing’. No one knows what Archilochus meant. But we know what Isaiah Berlin meant in quoting him.1 Berlin offered the fragment as a metaphor for two types of thinkers: those who have one leading idea and understand other things in terms of it, and those who have many independent and even conflicting ideas; the monists versus the pluralists. |
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