How are the process of learning in all its complexity and the claim of surplus thinking to be understood and described?

Three pairs of conceptions are brought forward to high-light a general model for learning:

• Feedback-feedforward
• Habitus-reflection
• Exuberance-toil

These conceptions are brought into a dynamic interaction which ends up in a general model of learning.

The author claims that this model is both a minimalist model for learning and a matrix to investigate other learning conceptions. Both the first and the second topic are investigated in the book.