Elsenhans started studying theology at the University of Tübingen, but became interested in philosophy. He received his doctorate in 1885. In 1902 he completed his Habilitationsschrift at Heidelberg University, with a monograph on Kant and the post-Kantian Jakob Friedrich Fries. In 1908 he took up a professorship at Dresden University, where he continued to work on epistemology.^[1]

• Psychologie und Logik zur Einführung in die Philosophie: für Oberklassen höherer Schulen und zum Selbststudium[Psychology and logic as an introduction to philosophy: for upper secondary school classes and for self-study], 1890
• Wesen und Entstehung des Gewissens: Eine Psychologie der Ethik [The nature and origin of conscience: a psyschology of ethics], 1894.
• Das Kant-Friesische Problem [The Kant-Fries problem], 1902.
• Lehrbuch der psychologie [Handbook of psychology], 1912