Richard Semon
Richard Wolfgang Semon (born August 22, 1859 in Berlin , † December 12, 1918 in Munich ) was a German zoologist and evolutionary biologist .
Life
Richard Semon studied zoology in Jena with Ernst Haeckel and medicine in Heidelberg. He obtained his doctorate in 1883 in Jena. phil. and in 1886 Dr. med. He completed his habilitation at the Anatomical Institute in Jena in 1887 and became an associate professor in 1891. In 1895 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In 1897 he left the University of Jena at his own request and moved to Munich.
Semon took the view that acquired traits can be inherited and applied this to social evolution. Semon was a founding member of the German Monist Association .
Semon suggested the terms " mneme " and " engram " which influenced later research by Karl Lashley (engram) and Richard Dawkins ( mem ).
On December 12, 1918, after the end of the First World War and the monarchy, Semon shot himself wrapped in the flag of the German Empire.
Works
- In the Australian bush and on the coasts of the Coral Sea . 1896; 2., verb. Ed. 1903
- The memes as a sustaining principle in the alternation of organic occurrences . Leipzig, Engelmann 1904. (5th ed. 1920; English: The Mneme. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1921)
- The Engram Treasure of Memory [1904], in: Uwe Fleckner (ed.), Treasure Chambers of Mnemosyne, Dresden (Verlag der Kunst) 1995, 206–212
- The mnemic sensations in their relationship to the original sensations . Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1909; 2nd edition 1922
- The problem of inheritance of acquired traits . Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1912
- Process of consciousness and brain process: a study on the energetic correlates of the properties of sensations / after the author's death, edited by Otto Lubarsch . Wiesbaden: Verlag von JF Bergmann, 1920.
literature
- Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, 1976.
- Uwe Hoßfeld : Semon, Richard Wolfgang. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 241 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Daniel L. Schacter : Forgotten Ideas, Neglected Pioneers: Richard Semon and the Story of Memory . Psychology Press, Philadelphia 2001, ISBN 1-84169-052-X .
- Jürg Schatzmann: Richard Semon and his mneme theory . Zurich 1968
- Lars Ludwig: Extended Artificial Memory. Toward an integral cognitive theory of memory and technology. . Dissertation. Kaiserslautern 2013 (contains an outline and a contemporary update and extension of Semon's memory theory)
Web links
- Literature by and about Richard Semon in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ^ German biography: Semon, Richard - German biography. Retrieved January 3, 2020 .
- ↑ Member entry of Richard Semon at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 26, 2016.
- ↑ Richard Semon: The mnemes as a sustaining principle in the change of organic events. Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig 1904.
- ↑ Jürg Schatzmann: Richard Semon and his mneme theory. Zurich 1968, p. 42.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Semon, Richard |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Semon, Richard Wolfgang |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German zoologist and evolutionary biologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 22, 1859 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 12, 1918 |
| Place of death | Munich |