From a distance, it does not seem as if philosophy and business would have anything to say to one another. Businesses are concerned with meeting strict targets under time pressure, maximising revenue and outwitting competitors. Philosophy is concerned with the largest and most impractical questions about the meaning of life; it sets itself no targets and has no practical outcomes.

But in reality, business and philosophy have a huge amount to say to one another. Beneath their interest in profits, businesses are forced to engage with nothing less than the question of how to satisfy their customers, a subject full of contradictions and complexities. For its part, philosophy has spent most of its long history investigating the ingredients of a good life, what Aristotle called eudaimonia, a Greek word translated as “flourishing” or “fulfilment”. In their different ways, philosophy and business have to work out what satisfies people – and therefore how they tick.

Most businesses – outside a tiny crooked minority – have to be committed to promoting the flourishing of their customers. Their long-term survival depends on it. Perhaps they are selling people hand-dryers or household insurance but, ultimately, their livelihoods depend on the accuracy with which they have discerned the true needs of those they have set out to serve: profit is the reward for working out those of your clients ahead of anyone else.