Contact Information
Office: 213 I. G. Greer Hall
Email: kwongj at appstate.edu
Phone: (828) 262-2424
Fax: (828) 262-6619
Mailing Address: 114 I. G. Greer Hall, Department of Philosophy and Religion, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, USA, 28608.
Welcome to my homepage. I am professor of philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. I received my B.A. from the University of Lethbridge, and my Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. My primary areas of research are in philosophy of mind, epistemology and moral psychology. I have an interest in a wide range of topics but I am mainly working on questions surrounding the nature of open-mindedness and of hope. My work has appeared in American Philosophical Quarterly, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Erkenntnis, European Journal of Philosophy, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Philosophical Psychology, Ratio, Synthese, and other venues. I am currently an associate editor for Journal of Philosophical Research, and a member of the review board for Educational Theory.
Recent Talks
"The Nature of Despair", invited colloqium talk, Wake Forest University, 10/24/24
"Beyond Deaths of Despair", 8th annual PPE Society, New Orleans, 11/14/24
"Hoping in the Face of Despair", Philosophy and Religion in the Contemporary World, Appalachian State University, 02/25
"Don't Forget the Hopeless", invited talk, Rhodes College, 03/31/25
"Open-Mindedness has a PR problem!", Political Dimensions of Open-Mindedness workshop, Berlin, Germany, 07/03/25
"Contextualizing Hoping without Hope", Hope in Context workshop, Cologne, Germany, 07/9/25
