Martin Foss
American philosopher
Martin Foss (1889–1968) was a German-born American philosopher, professor, and scholar.
Life and career
Martin Foss was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1889 and studied philosophy and law at German and French universities. He married Hilde Schindler, and they had two children, Oliver Foss, a painter, and the composer Lukas Foss. The Jewish family left Germany in 1933 when Adolf Hitler came into power, and for the next four years Martin Fuchs commuted secretly between Paris and Berlin. With the help of the Quaker community in the United States, the family was able to immigrate to the U.S. in 1937. The Quakers provided initial shelter for the family and advised Martin to change the family name from Fuchs to Foss. (It is unknown why the name was not changed to Fox, which is what "Fuchs" means.) Martin subsequently became an American citizen. He taught philosophy at Haverford College, where he retired as professor emeritus, as well as at Temple University. He died of a heart attack at the age of 79, while he was running to catch a plane at Heathrow Airport.
Martin Foss taught and wrote during a time when phenomenology dominated and influenced many thinkers, such as Martin Heidegger, Ortega y Gasset, and Jean-Paul Sartre.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6775460. VIAF identifies the subject as 109798249. The Library of Congress control number is no97045977. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1968, 1933 and 1937.
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This entry incorporates text from “Martin Foss” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.