How the Fox and the Hedgehog Influence the World

The world needs both.

“The fox knows many small things, while the hedgehog knows one big thing.” (Aesop’s fable)

In his book, “The Hidden Habits of Genius”, author Craig M.Wright speaks about the contrasting cognitive styles of foxes, the polymaths, and hedgehogs, the specialists and experts.

The foxes are curious to explore and experiment and unafraid of contradictions. They use their combinatorial ability to join seemingly disparate things into new insights.

The hedgehogs prefer to dig deeper into a single subject as a mission and seek an overarching solution.

Geniuses have fox-like personalities. Benjamin Franklin was the archetypal polymath. Other examples are Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci.

Most of the single-field experts like musicians, athletes, artists, surgeons, etc., are hedgehogs.

Human progress depends on both foxes and hedgehogs.