I wouldn't be mentioning the following two unflattering anecdotes had it not been for the recent revelations with regard to Searle's having been been stripped of his emeritus status at the University of California, Berkeley. He was found to have violated sexual harrassment policies. See The Fall of John Searle.
In 1983 during my tenure at the University of Dayton, John Searle was invited to be a keynote speaker at a conference organized by the philosophy department. Searle opened the proceedings by telling a joke and insulting his hosts. He recounted how his travel agent, upon hearing Searle's request for a ticket to Dayton, Ohio, exclaimed, "What are you, a ticket fetishist?" A coastal elitist, Searle apparently considered Ohio to be 'flyover country' and Dayton Hicksville.
In one of the sessions, while a young academic was reading his paper, Searle ostentatiously ignored him by reading from The New York Times. He sat in the front of the room, with the paper held high, blocking his view of the speaker.
That says something about the man, and its says something about contemporary analytic philosophy.
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