A Hole Theory …

Excerpt:

In the chapters above we presented our views in a rather infor­mal set­ting, trying to show the philosophical importance and conse­quences of a realist attitude toward holes rather than spelling out a full-fledged theory of holes.
In this appendix we attempt to address this task more di­rectly by summarizing some basic tenets of our account in a rather systematic – though by no means complete – fashion. For convenience, we divide the presentation into four main sec­tions:
(1) a preliminary ontological part, which introduces the basic binary relation “is a hole in (or through)” along with some rel­evant facts;
(2) a mereo­logical part, which systematizes some funda­men­tal prin­ci­ples governing the interplay between the host-hole and the part-whole relations;
(3) a topological part, which summa­rizes some basic facts con­cern­ing surfaces and the taxonomy of holes; and
(4) a morphological part, focusing on the fact that ob­jects with holes constitute – as we have put it – the morphologi­cal mani­fold of fil­lable things.

….

The underly­ing logic is deliberately left vague, as after all we think holes are ut­terly neutral in this respect. A preferred al­ternative is some sort of a free logic, where im­proper de­scrip­tions and other pos­sibly empty expres­sions can be admitted bona fide; however, every­thing that follows could in prin­ciple be dealt with within the frame­work of a standard first-order logic, with i treated as an im­proper symbol. In ad­di­tion, we as­sume familiarity with some ba­sic princi­ples of ex­ten­sional mereo­logy and topol­ogy.

Linkie: http://suo.ieee.org/SUO/documents/Holes.html

Aaaaaand seen! 🙂