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Added by: Clotilde TorregrossaAbstract:
Synopsis generated from the paper: A dialogue between Argle, a nominalist materialist, and Bargle. Bargle argues that saying there are holes in a piece of cheese commits one to holes as immaterial entities, since a hole is an absence of matter. Argle first treats “there are holes in …” as an unanalyzed shape-predicate, synonymous with “is perforated,” so that it does not quantify over holes. Counting holes, and saying there are as many holes as crackers without saying how many, makes that paraphrase unmanageable. Argle then accepts that holes exist, but identifies them with material objects: their hole-linings. Said of a hole, “in” and “through” mean “part of,” and many different linings can be “the same hole” when they share a part that is itself a hole. Here “same” means co-perforated, not identical. Bargle presses the costs of this view: whether a hole can spin, how volume is assigned, how much of the cheese belongs to a hole, and whether the halves of a roller are themselves holes. Argle accepts several departures from common opinion as the price of a clear and economical theory. They present the exchange as a simple illustration of their usual disputes over what exists, and as a case that would have threatened Argle’s materialism if holes could not be reduced to matter.
Comment: This is an accessible resource which works well to introduce various issues in ontology and meta-ontology in an engaging way. Would work well in an undergraduate course on metaphysics or ontology, or as introductory reading for a graduate level course on metaphysics or ontology.
Lewis, David, Lewis, Stephanie. Holes
1970, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 48(2): 206–212
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