He is well known for defending and expanding on the program in the philosophy of language started by Saul Kripke as well as being a major critic of two-dimensionalist theories of meaning.
Gilbert Harman, one of Soames's colleagues, was quoted at the time saying that "He's one of the most distinguished people we've got.
He has published books and articles primarily on issues concerning truth, reference, and meaning.
He is also a major critic of two-dimensionalist theories of semantics—see his Reference and Description: The Case against Two-Dimensionalism (2005).
Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century (2003), his two-volume history of analytic philosophy developed from a lecture course regularly given at Princeton, has been the subject of significant controversy among historians of analytic philosophy, with exchanges, often heated, on the Notre Dame Philosophical Review, Brian Weatherson's blog, the journal The Philosophical Quarterly, and Soames's own web page.