How We Learn - The Spiral of Knowledge

This post was written while studying for my last set of university final exams.

"How do we learn? How do we take knowledge and build upon it?"

Have you ever taken a second to consider these questions? As university students, we tend to do plenty of learning. Hopefully. But we may never consider what is going on as we learn. We fail to notice the patterns that repeat themselves time after time. Becoming aware of these patterns has helped me through the long hours of studying. My hope is that it will be of some use to you as well.

During my first few years of university, I spent lots of time thinking about philosophy and religion. This went well with all the course work I was doing, eventually leading to a major in Religion (alongside Biology).

I remember I used to spend a lot of time reflecting on epistemology. Epistemology is the philosophical attempt to answer the question: "how do we know what we know". In other words, it examines the foundations and validity of our knowledge.

Of all the authors I read, a new testament scholar had the greatest impact on my epistemology. Yes, I know, he may not have the philosophical vigor of a true philosopher, but his explanation of "how we can know the world around us" seemed pretty good to me. The scholar's name is N.T. Wright.

Now, religiously, I have come a long way from Wright's position. Wright is no longer a new testament scholar; he has become the Bishop of Durham for the Church of England. But his explanation of the "spiral of knowledge" (or "hermeneutical spiral") has remained with me yet. In brief, the spiral of knowledge states that learning--the formation of knowledge--is cyclical.

We start at a point with what we think is true. We then try to learn more by examining new evidence or reexamining old evidence. In the process, our understanding is modified. Thus, we cycle between a state of having conclusions and a state of challenging conclusions.

But then, why is it called a spiral and not a circle? The reason is that every time we go through a cycle and come back to a set of conclusions, our conclusions are often different from the ones we originally held. Hopefully, with each iteration of the cycle our conclusions come closer and closer to actual reality. Thus, our knowledge metaphorically "spirals upwards".

Oddly enough, I've found this metaphor of the spiral of knowledge to be an accurate description of how I learn. For example, I start with a certain understanding of a physiological process. I then study, read, and reflect, causing my understanding to grow and change. I then end up with a new and improved understanding of the same process. As the cycle repeats, my knowledge becomes more precise, and I even understand related ideas and concepts better.

So next time you're struggling to learn something, remember the spiral.