He received the 1908 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his earnest search for truth, his penetrating power of thought, his wide range of vision, and the warmth and strength in presentation with which in his numerous works he has vindicated and developed an idealistic philosophy of life", after he had been nominated by a member of the Swedish Academy.

His father, Ammo Becker Eucken died when he was a child, and he was brought up by his mother, Ida Maria (née Gittermann).

[4] In the latter place, Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg was a professor whose ethical tendencies and historical treatment of philosophy greatly attracted him.

Eucken received his PhD in classical philology and ancient history at Göttingen University in 1866 with a dissertation titled De Aristotelis dicendi ratione.

The aim of the historical works is to show the necessary connection between philosophical concepts and the age to which they belong; the same idea is at the root of his constructive speculation.