ROSENKRANZ, Johann Karl Friedrich. German philosopher and literary historian, b. 23 Apr. 1805 at Magdeburg, d. 14 June 1879 at Königsberg. He studied at Berlin, Halle, and Heidelberg. From 1828 he taught at the University of Halle and in 1833 succeeded J. Fr. Herbart (q.v.) at the University of Königsberg. For one year (1848) he served as an official in the Prussian Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs in Berlin.
Rosenkranz was the most active representative of the centrist tendency among the divergent schools of Hegelian successors. While preserving Hegel’s fundamental conception, he modified the structure of the system by separating logic and metaphysics from the theory of ideas. For him the absolute principle was no longer spirit but idea (q.v.), the original unity of thought and reality that produces the fullness of its material determinations by unfolding in the realms of nature and spirit. Rosenkranz also developed a highly personal philosophy of nature and aesthetics (q.v.). Of special interest is his attempt to interpret the history of poetry within the framework of a philosophy of spirit.
Principal works: Handbuch einer allgemeinen Geschichte der Poesie (Halle 1832–33; Italian trans. by F. De Sanctis, Naples 1853); Psychologie (Königsberg 1837; 3rd ed. 1863); Hegels Leben (Berlin 1844); Wissenschaft der logischen Idee (Königsberg 1858–59); Hegels Naturphilos. u. ihre Erläuterung durch den ital. Philosophen. I. Vera (Berlin 1868); Ästhetik des Hässlichen (Königsberg 1853); Hegel als deutscher Nationalphilosoph (Leipzig 1870).