Ebbinghaus, Herman

Basic Biographical Information

Herman Ebbinghaus was born on January 23, 1850, near Bonn, Germany. He studied languages and philosophy at the University of Bonn, although his studies were briefly interrupted in 1870, when he served in the army during the Franco-Prussian War. He obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1873.

Ebbinghaus began researching memory in 1878, and became a private lecturer at the University of Berlin in 1880. He is best known for a monograph published in 1885 (titled Uber das Gedachtnis and translated as On Memory), which resulted in his appointment of Professor at the University of Berlin in 1886. He moved to the University of Breslau in 1894, and after 11 years he moved to the University of Halle. Ebbinghaus died of pneumonia on February 26, 1909.

Major Accomplishments and Contributions

Ebbinghaus’s monograph, On Memory, documents his well-known research on memory. Ebbinghaus regarded memory as “ideas” and “mental states,” and he was the first to look at...