MARCUS AND THE NEW THEORY OF REFERENCE - REPLY

This paper is a reply to some of Scott Soames' comments on my colloqui um paper ''Marcus, Kripke, and the Origin of the New Theory of Referen ce''. Except for the indicated parts added in May, 1995, this paper wa s written on December 16th-25th, 1994 as my reply to Soames for the AP A colloquium in Boston, December 28, 1994. In this paper, I argue that Soames' contention that Marcus is not one of the ''primary founders o f contemporary nondescriptivist theories of reference'' is false. Soam es presents numerous arguments for his thesis that Marcus did not orig inate ideas later elaborated upon by Kripke, but his arguments are uns ound; they are based in part on a misunderstanding of Marcus' theory a nd in part on an inadequate grasp of some of the key notions of the Ne w Theory of Reference, such as the notion of a posteriori necessities and the notion of reference-fixing descriptions.