Trevor J. Phillips

Trevor Joeseph Phillips (January 26, 1927 – March 17, 2016) was a British-born educational philosopher and Professor of Educational Foundations and Inquiry at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. He wrote a dissertation on the philosophy transactionalism.

Life and work Born in England, Phillips moved to Canada in 1947 and studied at Sir George Williams and MacDonald College. He was a teacher at Lake of Two Mountains and Sorel, Quebec, before moving with his family to the United States to pursue a doctorate at the University of Connecticut. From 1963 until 1996, he taught Educational Philosophy at Bowling Green State University, winning multiple awards for excellence in teaching. This was published as Transactionalism: An Historical and Interpretive Study by Influence Ecology in 2013.

Transactionalism is a set of philosophical tools, or a method, employed to address the complexities of human social exchange or transactions. It refers to an approach rather than encouraging the philosophical position one should adopt in life. As a method of inquiry, it has been studied and applied to various disciplines including philosophy, education, psychology, political science, and social anthropology.

The pragmatic approach to and application of transactionalism in Phillips' work was primarily based on the theories and writings of John Dewey designed to advance a democratic way of life and learning. His dissertation was a historical and interpretative study of the life-work of John Dewey substantiated by additional scholarly thought from Aristotle, Arthur Bentley, Hadley Cantril, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, C. Wright Mills and several others working in the fields of philosophy, psychology, physics, and epistemology. In five chapters, Phillips gathers information scattered throughout various articles and books to provide a systematic philosophical inquiry into the origins and development of transactionalism. This philosophy continues to be missing in many schools and systems of education from formal education in Western and/or English-speaking societies to business.