Scott Soames

By AI Staff

Scott Soames is a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. Soames studied philosophy as an undergrad at Stanford University, and as a graduate student at MIT, earning his PhD in 1976. Prior to his current position, Soames taught at institutions including Yale University and Princeton University.

Soames’ work is largely focused in the philosophy of language, dealing with issues of meaning and truth, especially in regards to propositions. Soames picks up on the anti-descriptivist approach laid out by Saul Kripke, and expanding on these ideas of descriptivist approaches to language and meaning as implausible. Soames argues against what he calls “two-dimensional modal logic” that rejects the anti-descriptivist approach. In its place, Soames has worked toward a unified theory of language and meaning, though as with anything in philosophy, his approach is not without its detractors. Additionally, Soames has published a significant amount of work on the history of analytic philosophy (literally writing the book on the subject).

For his work Soames has received honors including fellowship in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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