Scott Soames

Scott Soames (born August 11, 1945 ) is an American philosophy professor . He is an expert in the philosophy of language and the history of analytical philosophy . He is known for his defense of a language-philosophical program in the tradition of Saul Kripke and his criticism of two-dimensionalism in the theory of meaning .

biography

Scott Soames studied linguistics and philosophy at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) . He obtained his Ph.D. degree from MIT in 1976.

Soames taught at Yale University (1976–1980) and Princeton University (1980–2004). Since 2004 he has been a professor at the University of Southern California . In 2010 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

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Soames has published books and articles that mainly deal with the subjects of truth , reference and meaning . With Nathan Salmon he edited the book Propositions and Attitudes in 1989. Soames expanded Saul Kripke's anti-descriptivist language philosophy program . He is one of the main critics of two-dimensional semantics.

His two-volume history of analytical philosophy ( Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century , 2003) emerged from a lecture regularly given at Princeton. The work was received very controversially. In the Notre Dame Philosophical Review , Brian Weatherson's blog , The Philosophical Quarterly , and Soames' own website.

Selected publications

Books

• (1989) Propositions and Attitudes , ed. with Nathan Salmon (Oxford University Press).
• (1999) Understanding Truth (Oxford University Press).
• (2002) Beyond Rigidity: The Unfinished Semantic Agenda of 'Naming and Necessity' (Oxford University Press).
• (2003) Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Volumes 1 and 2 (Princeton University Press).
• (2005) Reference and Description: The Case against Two-Dimensionalism (Princeton University Press).

Essays

• (1973) "Tacit Knowledge", The Journal of Philosophy , Vol. 70, No. 11., 318-330 (with Christina Graves, Jerrold J. Katz, Yuji Nishiyama, Robert Stecker, Peter Tovey).
• (1983) "Generality, Truth Functions, and Expressive Capacity in the Tractatus", The Philosophical Review , Vol. 92, No. 4th, 573-589.
• (1984) "What is a Theory of Truth?", The Journal of Philosophy , Vol. 81, No. 8th, 411-429.
• (1989) "Semantics and Semantic Competence", Philosophical Perspectives , Vol. 3, 575-596.
• (1994) "Attitudes and Anaphora", Philosophical Perspectives , Vol. 8, 251-272.
• (1997) "The Truth about Deflationism", Philosophical Issues , Vol. 8, 1-44.
• (1998) "The Modal Argument: Wide Scope and Rigidified Descriptions", Noûs , Vol. 32, No. 1, 1-22.
• (1998) "Facts, Truth Conditions, and the Skeptical Solution to the Rule-Following Paradox", Noûs , Vol. 32, 313-348.

Notes and sources

1. ↑ ^{a b} Source: Archived copy ( Memento of the original from January 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ See "Soames leaves for USC, weakening philosophy dept." ( Memento of the original from October 20, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ See Soames: Beyond Rigidity: The Unfinished Semantic Agenda of 'Naming and Necessity (2002)
4. ↑ See: Reference and Description: The Case against Two-Dimensionalism (2005)
5. ↑ See for example Soames: "Reply to Critics of Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century : Christopher Pincock, Thomas Hurka, Michael Kremer, and Paul Horwich" ( Memento of the original from September 3, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link became automatic used and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 69 kB) 

Web links

• Scott Soames, USC website.
• Scott Soames, Princeton - former Princeton site.
• "Soames leaves for USC, weakening philosophy dept." - News article about his poaching in March 2004.