IF Stephen Palmquist had his way, Hong Kong would be full of cafes where philosophers and ordinary citizens met to discourse on the meaning of life.
Instead of Prozac and psychotherapy, troubled people would go to philosophers for counselling and learn dialectic to resolve their problems rationally.
Ten years into his academic career and five books later, Mr Palmquist wants to take philosophy back to the marketplace where it originally started, at least in the West, more than 2,400 years ago in Athens.
'The biggest change in philosophy was with Socrates when a society tried to extinguish it by putting the philosopher to death,' he says. 'But philosophy is now generally recognised as an appropriate and necessary part of any education at most universities around the world.
'This can be taken as a different kind of marginalisation. Society says, 'This is where you philosophers can do your thing. Now try not to disturb the peace by confusing other people with your strange talk'.
'Many philosophers around the world are now trying to take philosophy out of the academy and return it to the marketplace - to make it relevant to everyday life again.' What Mr Palmquist is talking about is a movement known as Philosophical Practice, which is all the rage in Europe and North America and may soon be coming to Hong Kong, thanks to people like him. This is the unlikely dream of a philosophy teacher at Baptist University.
Money-crazed Hong Kong seems like the last place for discussions about virtues, ideals and the nature of good and evil. But stranger fads have started here in the past decade.