One of the terms used on this wiki.

I coined this term early in 2023, after searching and finding at the time that apparently no one had put these exact two words together before. The initial expression of this idea was at the entry: 2023-02-22. As time went on, I found it becoming increasingly relevant and vital, and the term has since been used by many other people.

What I mean is: the process and practice of finding common ground between different perspectives on a complex situation; finding ways to make sense of each other's conceptual models, without erasing differences, but generating a wider perspective within which individual perspectives can be inter-related. In my experience, this enriches the understanding and the models on all sides.

For a very rich sense of several connected issues, listen to the excellent podcast created in December 2023 by Anna-Marie Swan, in dialogue with me around ontological commoning.

“Ontological commoning” is just my name for the idea, as it's not completely new or original. I see many similarities in other approaches. I choose to use the name to point out that disagreement and conflict often have their roots at an ontological level, and can be addressed there, too.

I have made two attempts so far to spell out some of the methodology. A more general one is at 2025-03-17; There is also a concise draft 90-minute exercise along with a separate page on the rationale, but that may not have been recently updated.

It's good to feel some resonance in what Leo XIV said (2025-05-18). We are aiming “to achieve that unity which does not cancel out differences but values the personal history of each person and the social and religious culture of every people.”

2025: I have started a separate O namespace with its own index.

• the topic regenerating relationship
• the topic knowledge commons. I set out some ideas on the broader topic of knowledge commoning at 2025-07-27.
• the term ontology, where I briefly explain the two sides to ontology and how I relate them together.

• the late Silke Helfrich on commoning either directly on YouTube or with a transcript on the P2P Foundation wiki.
• research from UC Berkeley why we disagree so often (via Greater Good)
• Adversarial Collaboration I see as closely related.