Researching a piece on philosophy, ancient and modern, for the FT Magazine, I spoke to a number of big hitters. Here's something of my exchange with Graham Priest.

'Philosophers have become commodities.'

First, in your talk on the future of philosophy, you make a link between the fragmentation of philosophy and its commercialisation. Can you say more what you mean about the latter (for example, is it the business of America buying the best philosophers - and if so is the impact upon philosophy more than just that philosophy's centre of gravity is in the US; does it effect the philosophy in some way)?

Well, yes, certainly that. Philosophers have become commodities. But it's more than that. Public universities everywhere have had to raise more and more money, as they have gradually been starved of government funding. This means that they have had to commercialise much of their traditional activity. Philosophy does not lend itself well to this process, for obvious reasons, but it has had an effect: one cause of fragmentation has been the "selling off" of bits, especially in applied ethics, logic and other areas to "other interest" groups.

Second, I am interested in your idea of the revival of ethics in the last 15 years. Mostly, you say this refers to what might be called problems in moral philosophy or ethical specialisms (like bio-technology). But given, for the sake of argument, that ancient Greek philosophy was interested in the question of how to live, do you think that the contemporary revival of ethics has much to do with this rather different question too?

I do not think that the revival was caused by this. It was driven by issues such as virtue ethics, and questions in applied ethics. But clearly, these topics do relate to this important old question. It is the original home for questions of virtue, for example. Actually, I think the place where this traditional question is really coming to the fore is not in ethics as such, but in Asian philosophy. The topic has never ceased to be central there, and as more and more Western philosophers engage with things like Buddhism, they are more and more having to (re?)engage with this question.

Third, Australia has excellent outlets for popular philosophy - I think ABC could claim to have the best philosophical content of a national broadcaster on the planet. Do you agree, is it growing, and why do you think this is the case?

That's interesting. I can't comment on the comparative question because I don't know so much about countries other than Oz in the regard. But, yes, it is certainly growing slowly. I think that there is a recognition, both inside the profession and without it, that philosophy has much to offer outside the ivory towers of the academy - and very good this is too.