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Ideas of Scott Soames, by Text

[American, fl. 1987, Professor at Princeton University, then University of Southern California.]

2006 Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori
p.166 p.166 Analytic philosophy loved the necessary a priori analytic, linguistic modality, and rigour
p.167 p.167 Kripkean possible worlds are abstract maximal states in which the real world could have been
p.168 n5 p.168 Kripkean essential properties and relations are necessary, in all genuinely possible worlds
p.183 p.183 Two-dimensionalism reinstates descriptivism, and reconnects necessity and apriority to analyticity
p.186 p.186 A key achievement of Kripke is showing that important modalities are not linguistic in source
p.186 p.186 If philosophy is analysis of meaning, available to all competent speakers, what's left for philosophers?
2008 Why Propositions Aren't Truth-Supporting Circumstance
p.74 p.74 Semantic content is a proposition made of sentence constituents (not some set of circumstances)
p.78 p.78 Semantics as theory of meaning and semantics as truth-based logical consequence are very different
2010 Philosophy of Language
Intro p.1 To study meaning, study truth conditions, on the basis of syntax, and representation by the parts
Intro p.2 Tarski's account of truth-conditions is too weak to determine meanings
Intro p.3 We should use cognitive states to explain representational propositions, not vice versa
1.22 p.23 The universal and existential quantifiers were chosen to suit mathematics
1.22 p.24 Recognising the definite description 'the man' as a quantifier phrase, not a singular term, is a real insight
1.23 p.24 Indefinite descriptions are quantificational in subject position, but not in predicate position
3.1 p.53 There are more metaphysically than logically necessary truths
3.1 p.53 We understand metaphysical necessity intuitively, from ordinary life
3.1 p.54 The interest of quantified modal logic is its metaphysical necessity and essentialism