For many philosophers, the scholarly debate around holes began in earnest in 1970, with Lewis and Lewis’s now classic article for the Australasian Journal of Philosophy (48: 206–212.)

The authors presented their paper in a highly unusual format - that of an imaginary discussion between two philosophers, called Argle and Bargle, who are pondering the holes in a piece of Gruyère cheese.

Argle believes that every hole has a hole-lining, and therefore the hole-lining is the hole. On the other hand, Bargle points out that even if hole-linings surround holes, things don’t surround themselves.

The answers are still not clearcut, but since the 1970’s the philosophical debate around holes has continued and expanded considerably, and there is a suggestion that they could perhaps be categorised as a subsection of 'Almost Nothings' which also include cracks and shadows. See:‘Being and Almost Nothingness’ ^[archived] in the journal Noûs, Volume 44, Issue 4, pages 628–649, December 2010.

Further reading :

• Holes at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

• 'Where Argle and Bargle got things wrong', by Cargle and Dargle Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 82:1 (2004), 23–2.

Also see : Trypophobiaplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_bigTrypophobia

Trypophobia - a fear of (clusters of small) holes - was first formally described by Geoff G. Cole and Arnold J. Wilkins in their paper for Psychological Science August 2013 entitled

'Fear of Holes'

"The image most often reported as inducing the phobia is the seed head of the lotus flower. Other examples include soap bubbles and the holes in aerated chocolate." (fear of holes).