Trevor J. Phillips

Trevor Joeseph Phillips (January 26, 1927 – March 17, 2016)^[1][2] was a British-born educational philosopher whose dissertation outlined the history, psychology, philosophy, and educational roots of a philosophy known as Transactionalism in 1967.^[3] Transactionalism is little known philosophy with its own school of objective action and thought representing a relatively new approach to the "ancient and perennial problems of perceiving and knowing."^[4] Said another way, Transactionalism is an objective approach to fulfilling all the important conditions of life where "whatever professes to be knowledge must emerge from the actual context of inquiry"^[4] rather than relying on an orientation to the material world with concepts inherited from the past.

His doctoral dissertation titled Transactionalism was acquired, edited, and published as a hard cover book by Influence Ecology in 2013, with a foreword by Kirkland Tibbels, edited by Influence Ecology co-founders John Patterson and Kirkland Tibbels. Both the hardback version published in 2013 and the paperback version published in 2015 offer readers the original manuscript in its entirety with the exception of copyediting for the sake of clarity.

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.^[5] 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.

Throughout his career as a professor, Phillips published numerous articles, editorials, and reviews on topics related to educational philosophy including the topics of humanistic education, secondary education, and psychology.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11]}

Life and work

Phillips arrived in Canada from England in 1947 and studied at Sir George Williams and MacDonald College. He married in 1958^[12] and taught public high school for eight years at Lake of Two Mountains and Sorel, Quebec. He later moved 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, Ohio, winning multiple awards for excellence in teaching. He served as department chair from 1991-1994 and retired from Bowling Green State University as a professor emeritus of Educational Foundations and Inquiry. Upon retirement in 1997, Phillips resided in Surrey, British Columbia, with his wife. In the final decade of his life, he co-founded and remained active in the member-run Third Age Learning Program (TALK) sponsored by Kwantlan Polytechnic University^[13] a participatory learning experience that involved engaging discussion, controversy, humor, insight, and wisdom for adults ages 55-and-up.

Trevor J. Phillips died on March 17, 2016, in his 89th year.

References