Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński (; french: Josef Hoëné-Wronski ; 23 August 1776 – 9 August 1853) was a Polish messianist

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solicit ...

occultist The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...

and

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

. He was born as Hoëné to a municipal architect in 1776 but changed his name in 1815 to Józef Wroński. Later in life he changed his name to Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński, without using his family's original French spelling Hoëné. At no point in his life, neither in Polish or French, was he known as Hoëné-Wroński; nor was the common French transliteration, Josef Hoëné-Wronski, ever his official name in his native Poland (though it might have served as his chosen French ''nom de plume'' on some work). In 1803, Wroński joined the Marseille Observatory but was forced to leave the observatory after his theories were dismissed as grandiose rubbish. In mathematics, Wroński introduced a novel series expansion for a function in response to

Joseph Louis Lagrange Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi LagrangiaWronskian, a

determinant In mathematics, the determinant is a scalar value that is a function of the entries of a square matrix. It characterizes some properties of the matrix and the linear map represented by the matrix. In particular, the determinant is nonzero if a ...

Thomas Muir named in 1882.

Life

His father, Antoni, was the municipal architect of

Poznań Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint Joh ...

and came from a

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

n family settled in western Poland. Józef was educated in Poznań and

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...

. In 1794 he served in Poland's

Kościuszko Uprising The Kościuszko Uprising, also known as the Polish Uprising of 1794 and the Second Polish War, was an uprising against the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia led by Tadeusz Kościuszko in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the P ...

as a second lieutenant of artillery, was taken prisoner, and remained until 1797 in the Russian Army. After resigning in the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1798, he studied in the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 unt ...

until 1800, when he enlisted in the Polish Legion at

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...

. There he began his scientific and scholarly work and conceived the idea of a great philosophical system. Ten years later he moved to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

where he would spend most of his life working unremittingly to the last in the most difficult material circumstances. He wrote exclusively in

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

, in the desire that his ideas, of whose immortality he was convinced, be accessible to all; he worked, he said, "through France for Poland." He published over a hundred works, and left many more in manuscript; at 75 years of age and nearing death, he exclaimed: "God Almighty, there's still so much more I wanted to say!" In science, Hoene-Wroński set himself an extraordinary task: the complete reform of philosophy as well as that of mathematics, astronomy and technology. He elaborated not only a system of philosophy, but also applications to politics, history, economics, law, psychology, music and

pedagogy Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...

. It was his aspiration to reform human knowledge in an "absolute, that is, ultimate" manner. In 1803, Wroński joined the Marseille Observatory, and began developing an enormously complex theory of the structure and origin of the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the univers ...

. During this period, he took up a correspondence with nearly all of the major scientists and mathematicians of his day, and was well respected at the observatory. In 1803 Wroński "experienced a mystical illumination, which he regarded as the discovery of the Absolute." In 1810, he published the results of his scientific research in a massive tome, which he advocated as a new foundation for all of science and mathematics. His theories were strongly Pythagorean, holding numbers and their properties to be the fundamental underpinning of essentially everything in the universe. His claims were met with little acceptance, and his research and theories were generally dismissed as grandiose rubbish. His earlier correspondence with major figures meant that his writings garnered more attention than a typical crackpot theory, even earning a review from the great mathematician

Joseph Louis Lagrange Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi LagrangiaAlphonse Rebière Alphonse Michel Rebière ( Tulle, 1842 – Paris, 1900) was a nineteenth-century advocate for women's scientific abilities. He wrote the book Les Femmes dans la science, published in 1894. Rebière's piece followed the encyclopedia format, list ...

, ''Mathématiques et Mathématiciens'', Paris, 1998, p. 452. In the ensuing controversy, he was forced to leave the observatory. He immediately turned his focus towards applying philosophy to mathematics (his critics believed that this meant dispensing with mathematical rigor in favor of generalities). In 1812, he published a paper purporting to show that every

equation In mathematics, an equation is a formula that expresses the equality of two expressions, by connecting them with the equals sign . The word ''equation'' and its cognates in other languages may have subtly different meanings; for example, in F ...

has an

algebra Algebra () is one of the broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathematics. Elementary ...

ic solution, directly contradicting results which had been recently published by Paolo Ruffini; Ruffini turned out to be correct. He later turned his attention to disparate and largely unsuccessful pursuits such as a fantastical design for

caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Sy ...

-like vehicles which he intended to replace

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...

transportation, but did not manage to persuade anyone to give the design serious attention. In 1819, he travelled to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

in an attempt to obtain financial backing from the

Board of Longitude The Commissioners for the Discovery of the Longitude at Sea, or more popularly Board of Longitude, was a British government body formed in 1714 to administer a scheme of prizes intended to encourage innovators to solve the problem of finding lon ...

to build a device to determine

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek let ...

at sea. After initial difficulties, he was given an opportunity to address the Board, but his pretentious address, ''On the Longitude'', contained much philosophizing and generalities, but no concrete plans for a working device, and thus failed to gain any support from the Board. He remained for several years in England and, in 1821, published an introductory text on mathematics in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, which moderately improved his financial situation. In 1822, he returned to France, and again took up a combination of mathematics and far-fetched ideas, despite being in poverty and scorned by intellectual society. Along with his continuing Pythagorean obsession, he spent much time working on several notoriously futile endeavors, including attempts to build a perpetual motion machine, to

square the circle Squaring the circle is a problem in geometry first proposed in Greek mathematics. It is the challenge of constructing a square with the area of a circle by using only a finite number of steps with a compass and straightedge. The difficult ...

and to build a machine to predict the future (which he dubbed the ''prognometre''). In 1852, shortly before his death, he did find a willing audience for his ideas: the

Eliphas Levi Eliphaz is one of Esau's sons in the Bible. Eliphaz or Eliphas is also the given name of: * Eliphaz (Job), another person in the Bible * Eliphaz Dow (1705-1755), the first male executed in New Hampshire, for murder * Eliphaz Fay (1797–1854), fo ...

who met Wroński and was greatly impressed and "attracted by his religious and scientific utopianism." Wroński was "a powerful catalyst" for Levi's occultism. Wroński died in 1853 in

Neuilly-sur-Seine Neuilly-sur-Seine (; literally 'Neuilly on Seine'), also known simply as Neuilly, is a commune in the department of Hauts-de-Seine in France, just west of Paris. Immediately adjacent to the city, the area is composed of mostly select residentia ...

, France, on the outskirts of Paris.

Legacy

During his lifetime nearly all his work was dismissed as nonsense. However, some of it came to be regarded in a more favourable light in later years. Although most of his inflated claims were groundless, his mathematical work contains flashes of deep insight and many important intermediary results, the most significant of which was his work on series. He had strongly criticized

Lagrange Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi Lagrangiadeterminant In mathematics, the determinant is a scalar value that is a function of the entries of a square matrix. It characterizes some properties of the matrix and the linear map represented by the matrix. In particular, the determinant is nonzero if a ...

now known as the Wronskian (the name which Thomas Muir had given them in 1882). The level of Wroński's scientific and scholarly accomplishments and the amplitude of his objectives placed Wroński in the first rank of European metaphysicians in the early 19th century. But the abstract formalism and obscurity of his thought, the difficulty of his language, his boundless self-assurance and his uncompromising judgments of others alienated him from most of the scientific community. He was perhaps the most original of the Polish metaphysicians, but others were more representative of the Polish outlook.

Works

Books *''Introduction à la philosophie des mathématiques, et technie de l'algorithmie'' (1811) *''Prodrome du Messianisme; Révélation des destinées de l’humanité'' (1831) *''Réflexions philosophiques sur un miroir parabolique'' (1832) *''Resolution of equation polynomials of tous les degries (in anglishe)'' (1833)

References

Władysław Tatarkiewicz Władysław Tatarkiewicz (; 3 April 1886, Warsaw – 4 April 1980, Warsaw) was a Polish philosopher, historian of philosophy, historian of art, esthetician, and ethicist. Early life and education Tatarkiewicz began his higher education at ...

, ''Historia filozofii'' (History of Philosophy), 3 vols., Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1978.

External links

* * * Piotr Pragacz
Notes on the life and work of Jozef Maria Hoene-Wronski
preprint (March 2007) * J. Hoëné de Wronski
''Introduction à la philosophie des mathématiques, et technie de l'algorithmie''
1811 * Roman Murawski
"The Philosophy of Hoene-Wronski"
in: Organon 35, 2006, pp. 143–150 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hoene-Wronski, Jozef 1778 births 1853 deaths 19th-century Polish mathematicians Kościuszko insurgents Philosophers of mathematics People from Wolsztyn Polish occultists Burials at Neuilly-sur-Seine community cemetery 19th-century Polish philosophers Polish messianism

Life

Legacy

Works

See also

References

External links