Life and career

Martin Foss was born in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 in 1889 and studied philosophy and law at German and French universities. He married Hilde Schindler, a German woman, and they had two children, Oliver Foss, a painter, and the composer Lukas Foss

Lukas Foss

Lukas Foss was a German-born American composer, conductor, and pianist.-Music career:He was born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922. His father was the philosopher and scholar Martin Fuchs...

. The Jewish family left Germany in 1933 when Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 came into power, and for the next four years Martin Fuchs commuted secretly between Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and Berlin. With the help of the Quaker community in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, 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

Haverford College

Haverford College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States, a suburb of Philadelphia...

 where he retired as Professor emeritus. 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

Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...

, Ortega y Gasset, and Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...

. Existentialism

Existentialism

Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...

 was also popular, but his view of existence was based more on the views of Medieval thinkers such as Cusanus. Foss was considered to be an Aristotelian

Aristotelianism

Aristotelianism is a tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle. The works of Aristotle were initially defended by the members of the Peripatetic school, and, later on, by the Neoplatonists, who produced many commentaries on Aristotle's writings...

 philosopher. He was a student of Max Scheler

Max Scheler

Max Scheler was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology...

, whose works had a significant influence on his ideas about ethics, value and love.

Martin Foss’s book, Symbol and Metaphor in Human Experience, was listed as one of the “Most Neglected Books of the Past 25 Years” by The American Scholar in 1956. Other writers have cited his work as being "far-reaching," "seminal," and "ahead of its time." In the academic treatise, The Faces of Reason: An Essay on Philosophy and Culture in English Canada, 1850-1950, authors Leslie Armour and Elizabeth Trott state that Martin Foss may be considered a greater philosopher than Martin Heidegger. Although Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...

 has clearly had far greater recognition and impact, Martin Foss’s work deserves renewed attention.

Philosophy

Martin Foss’s work deals with the “large” issues of life—love, death, and creative rebirth. His writings on art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

 and creative process are particularly noteworthy, offering a missing perspective in that genre. His texts reach far beyond philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, and have been used in academic depth psychology

Depth psychology

Historically, depth psychology, from a German term , was coined by Eugen Bleuler to refer to psychoanalytic approaches to therapy and research that take the unconscious into account. The term has come to refer to the ongoing development of theories and therapies pioneered by Pierre Janet, William...

, theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

, and art programs, as well as philosophy programs.

Foss's perspective on Greek tragedy

Tragedy

Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...

 is important and unprecedented. His views on tragedy as religious drama give new meaning to the word "religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

."

Culture, Meaning and Destiny

In his seminal book Symbol and Metaphor In Human Experience, for which he is primarily known, Foss explains the difference between the Self as a maker of things and the creative process of personality. The germ of this distinction is developed as well in another of his books, Death, Sacrifice, and Tragedy, which explores in more detail the meanings of Greek and Shakespearean tragedies. In Foss’s view, the significance of Greek tragedy involves the discovery of the "creative and dynamic personality and man's sacrificial and intercessional nature."

He writes: "life in its core is a perpetual conversion from a lower sphere to a higher one, destroying the lower for the sake of realizing the higher, and this creative destruction, the sacrificial action, conveys to life its essential character, which is sacramental."

The theme of death, sacrifice, and tragedy is the basis for his view of ethics

Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

 which supplants the modern humanist

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

 perspective that is limited to pragmatic man using his environment solely for fulfilling the needs and desires of the body. This use of the environment for practical expediency is a sphere which man and the animal have in common. It is the world of order and the making of things for their various uses. But beyond the physical world, Foss argues that man is a citizen of another world as well, a world that is hidden but disclosed. This world is the sphere of value "where no things, no accomplishments, no possessions as such count, but where works and achievements manifest a loving communion and nothing else." In Foss’s view, the purpose of human life is to serve this spiritual, transcendent world which rises before man as the meaning and destiny of his life. Through sacrifice and the creative process of personality, man is lifted into this world of intensive reality which shapes his destiny.

Foss contrasts this concept of creation with the commonly accepted ethic of utilitarianism

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...

 that is prevalent in modern societies. He writes that an ethics of utilitarianism enables a "rational organization of a collective ritual of law," and he defines rituals of law as symbolic reductions that are finite and relative (i.e., not the source of absolute ethical values). Stuck in this deficient sphere, man desires a more meaningful life, which involves seeking the higher realm of creation. Foss refers to this choice as "man under destiny." It is not an easy way of living, since one must accept the sacramental

Sacramental

Sacramental may refer to:* Sacramental, as an adjective means of or pertaining to sacraments* Sacramentals, in Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism, objects whose supernatural effects, unlike those of a sacrament, depend on the belief of the recipient...

 nature of life and the communion of Love as the source of one's direction in life.

Martin Foss and Other Philosophers

Foss's work diverges in important ways from that of Carl Jung

Carl Jung

Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...

. Both scholars were writing in parallel (during the same period of time) about similar concepts, although Foss highlights the creative process as the central element of life in a way that Jung does not. Jung's definition of the symbol

Symbol

A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...

 is much different than Foss's. In Jung's view, a symbol has great meaning, deriving from the collective unconscious

Collective unconscious

Collective unconscious is a term of analytical psychology, coined by Carl Jung. It is proposed to be a part of the unconscious mind, expressed in humanity and all life forms with nervous systems, and describes how the structure of the psyche autonomously organizes experience...

. Contrary to Jung, Foss uses the term "symbol" to refer to that which is man-made and static (Jung uses the term "sign" to denote something static). Foss uses the term "metaphor

Metaphor

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

" to denote the universal creative process that underlies human life and consciousness. In Foss's view, the metaphoric process of life is a continuous, ongoing creative force that is always working to "move beyond" (and destroy) the static state of the symbol. The metaphoric wants to create anew. One might compare Jung's concept of the "collective unconscious" to Foss's concept of the metaphoric, but again, Jung makes no real acknowledgement of life as an ongoing creative process in the way that Foss does. Foss provides a fascinating and important theory for how change happens in life—a theory that has been unmatched by no other philosopher. Perhaps one reason that their work was not referenced by the other, is because Jung was writing in the field of psychology, while Foss was a philosopher.

His writings can also be compared with the writings of Martin Heidegger and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of both Piltdown Man and Peking Man. Teilhard conceived the idea of the Omega Point and developed Vladimir Vernadsky's concept of Noosphere...

, both of whom are well-known for their views on process philosophy

Process philosophy

Process philosophy identifies metaphysical reality with change and dynamism. Since the time of Plato and Aristotle, philosophers have posited true reality as "timeless", based on permanent substances, whilst processes are denied or subordinated to timeless substances...

which describes the universe as a process, rather than a fixed state.

Major publications

• Essay. Logos, XII (1924)
• Essay. Logos, XIII (1925)
• The Idea of Perfection in the Western World (1946). New Jersey: Princeton University Press
• Symbol and Metaphor in Human Experience (1949). New Jersey: Princeton University Press
• Logic and Existence (1962). New York: Philosophical Library
• Death, Sacrifice and Tragedy (1966). New York: Philosophical Library

External links

• “Most Neglected Books of the Past 25 Years”
• http://books.google.com/books?id=FSg3S7sETawC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=%22martin+foss%22+%22symbol+and+metaphor%22&source=bl&ots=at-XejIcNC&sig=ByOJ5BZtPEv6V8GZS2ME2iP8MFM&hl=en&ei=-fUSTPL3NZjAMqDGibML&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CCoQ6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=%22martin%20foss%22%20%22symbol%20and%20metaphor%22&f=falseFrye, Northrop & Knights, L.C. (1963). Myth and Symbol: Critical Approaches and Applications. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.]
• http://books.google.com/books?id=IVYNAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=%22martin+foss%22+%22greater+philosopher%22+heidegger&source=bl&ots=MFF1_k8fVm&sig=J_DnEpTsq_Oc-iv26xhfl9JbWUg&hl=en&ei=fvYSTKefO4yKNsfp5eEL&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22martin%20foss%22%20%22greater%20philosopher%22%20heidegger&f=falseArmour, Leslie & Trott, Elizabeth (1982). The Faces of Reason: An Essay on Philosophy and Culture in English Canada, 1850-1950. Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press]
• http://groups.google.com/group/Martin-foss
• http://www.bayarea.net/~kins/AboutMe/900GreatBooks.html