David Jones is Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo and the Editor-in-Chief of Comparative and Continental Philosophy (Taylor and Francis). He was professor of philosophy at Kennesaw State University in Atlanta from 1994 to 2025 and was the founding editor of East-West Connections (2000 to 2013) and the the Series on Comparative and Continental Philosophy at Northwestern University Press. In 2013 and 2015 he was Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences at National Taiwan University and has been a visiting professor at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, Visiting Professor of Chinese Philosophy at the University of North Georgia, and Visiting Professor of Confucian Classics at Emory.
From 1996 to 2008 he was the director of the Center for the Development of Asian Studies, which was a Southeast regional center of the Asian Studies Development Program at the East-West Center in Honolulu. Under his direction, CDAS coordinated many faculty development workshops and organized conferences and programs on Asia for faculty and the public in Atlanta, the Southeast, and nationally. David Jones was the president of the Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle from 2006-2017 and remains on its Executive Board.
A past president of the Association of Asian Studies/Southeast Regional of thirteen states, he was the president of the Asian Studies Development Program Alumni Chapter from 2005 to 2011. At the 50th Anniversary International Conference in July 2010, the ASDP Chapter was conferred the 2010 “Outstanding East-West Center Association Chapter Award.” He was a re-elected member of the East-West Center Association Executive Board from 2004 to 2010 and served as the Vice President for Chapter Development for the East-West Center Association from 2008-2010. In 2004, he was awarded the East-West Center Distinguished Alumnus Award in Tokyo.
In 2010 he was one of fifty worldwide scholars invited to present and participate in the first Daoist Salon in Zhengzhou, China. In July 2010 he was invited to be a Text Seminar Leader for Approaching Dialogue with the Kyoto School at the Collegium Phaenomenologicum in Città di Castello, Italy. In December 2011 he was among a select group of U.S. scholars invited to present and participate in the Society for the Study of Religious Philosophy in Taiwan at its first International Symposium on Chinese Culture and Religious Concord.
In 2013, he joined representatives from throughout East Asia to be a participant in “Current Situation and Future Direction of the Humanities in East Asia: Humanities World Report” International Workshop and was part of a small group of scholars invited worldwide to join the Peking Philosophy Department and other prominent Chinese scholars to discuss the work of Yan Fu (1854-1921), who introduced Western ideas (including Darwin’s idea of natural selection) to Chinese thinkers. The Yan Fu Conference was held at Beijing Dàxué (Peking University).
As an author, David Jones writes mostly in the areas of Chinese and Greek Philosophy with other publications in Japanese, Buddhist, environmental, and Continental philosophy. He has published a considerable number of articles, book chapters, journal introductions, book introductions, edited books, and co-authored The Fractal Self: Science, Philosophy, and the Evolution of Cooperation with John L. Culliney in 2017.
Throughout the years, he has been a steadfast nominee for distinguished teaching, scholarship, and service awards and was the awardee of the 2012-2013 College of Humanities and Social Sciences Distinguished Research and Creative Activity Award and the 2013 Kennesaw State University Foundation Distinguished Research and Creative Activity Award. In 2016 he was the recipient of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Outstanding Professional Service Award. As the conferee of the 2017 College of Humanities and Social Sciences Distinguished Professor Award, he was conferred later that year as the Kennesaw State University Foundation Distinguished Professor.
From 1996 to 2020, David Jones was the Faculty Advisor for the award winning Philosophy Student Association, which was then one of the most active student organizations in the country, and has served as its Senior Advisor. He received his doctorate in comparative philosophy from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.
David Jones 