ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the semiotic learning theory implies a philosophy of altruism. That plurality is the basic and necessary condition for learning, as argued above, implies the need for cultivating and enhancing plurality. The chapter explains the relation between education and violence. As living as an embodied organism is a prerequisite of semiotic scaffolding, it argues that the bodily dimension of alloscopic experience accounts for personal development. The chapter also argues that, from an ecosemiotic perspective, violence as practised by human beings, the intentional harming of another group or individual, either of the same species or not, stands at the root of the destruction of the environment. It considers that Gomez Ponce employs a metaphor theory which is unusual for biosemiotics. However, his argument is mostly developed in the biosemiotic framework. His understanding of human violence is expressed in parallelism to non-human animal predation.
