Parts and Participation in the Mystical Experience of Chiara Lubich from the Perspective of Mereology

Abstract

The article considers Chiara Lubich’s mystical experience of “participation,” as recorded in the Paradise ’49 writings, from the viewpoint of the discipline of mereology (a formal study of parts). It illustrates how the pattern of participation described by Chiara can find rational support (in the sense of not being conceptually impossible) in a non standard version of mereology.