Ecology of meanings is proposed as a theoretical model to explain communication processes. It is a critical constructivist approach that integrates the model of exchange values by Jean Piaget and the communication model of schematization by Jean-Blaise Grize, and explores a research path envisaged by Jürgen Habermas in the theory of communicative action. The model leads to an understanding of communication science as a transversal discipline that crosses all others; that is, both psychological and social, and that accounts for universal and necessary as well as particular and contingent knowledge. In this article, the model and potential contributions are explained.The objective of this article is to propose ecology of meanings, a model to explain communication processes. In biology, ecologies are understood as interacting organic systems opened to the environment, functioning dynamically, and permanently in the search for equilibrium. Trials to understand the human cognitive and affective mechanisms of transmitting and interpreting information, and building knowledge along the evolution of the species, have generated conflicting views among scientists with regards to the relationship between culture and nature. Some scientists, mostly from the human sciences, assume that culture and nature follow entirely independent paths, whereas others such as Freud (1930Freud ( /1981 consider culture dependent on and/or subordinated to nature. The general belief that nature and culture are largely unrelated, and that culture is disconnected from human ontogenesis and phylogenesis, is subjacent to most communication theories. In this article, I introduce the model of ecology of meanings as an alternative view of the communication process relating human nature (cognition and affectivity) and culture (ethics and politics). Craig (1999) once praised the idea that communication scholars would contribute more to communication studies by moving to interdisciplinary studies such as biology. Cappella (1991), for example, suggested that some patterns of human interaction have a biological origin. Pragmatists such as Kelly (1955), Sperber and Wilson (1986) highlighted the importance of cognitive processes from the perspective of