Argle. I've said it before and I'll say it again: all things are material. Either holes are somehow material, or else there are no such things. Maybe a hole is the material hole-lining that, as we so misleadingly say, “surrounds” the hole; or else whatever ostensible reference we make to holes is secretly some other sort of language-game altogether, or it's fictitious reference, or it's just plain mistaken.

Bargle. You're ready to say anything, aren't you, so long as it isn't plain common sense. Of course what's true is that holes are immaterial entities. – But what do these fellows think?

Casati and Varzi. Exactly so, Bargle: holes are immaterial entities. As Tucholsky put it: a hole is, where something isn't.

Argle. If there were no matter at all, there'd be one big hole?

Casati and Varzi. No; a hole is always a hole in something: a cavity in the cheese, a hollow in a glass bottle, a tunnel through rock. A hole requires a host; and these hosts are material. (Normally, anyway; a hole in the electromagnetic field might be a region where the field vector is uniformly zero. Let's ignore these special cases here.) No matter, no hosts; no hosts; no holes. Holes are dependent entities: they exist in virtue of the arrangement of matter.

Bargle. Right! And the hole is Argle. Right! The hole is reimmaterial through and through, dundant: it supervenes upon the and the host is material; and be- arrangement of matter. So it is no sides, the hole is wheres the host genuine addition to reality; it is isn't.