Introduction to Rée’s Life and Primary Works on Morality

Less is known about Paul Rée’s life than Schopenhauer’s, and most of what we do know about him concerns his relationship with Nietzsche. Rée is also less widely studied than Schopenhauer, let alone studied as a philosopher in his own right apart from Nietzsche. However, there is enough information about Rée to provide a general sketch of his life, and as we will see, Rée’s moral philosophy was both sophisticated and highly influential for Nietzsche, if also underdeveloped in many regards.

Rée was born in Pomerania, an area between modern-day Germany and Poland along the Baltic Sea, to a wealthy Jewish family in 1849 (BW, xi). He studied philosophy and law at the University of Leipzig starting in 1869 and earned a doctorate from Halle in 1875 after writing about Aristotle’s ethics for his dissertation. Like Nietzsche who was 22 enabled by a university pension to live nomadically, Rée was supported by a monthly allowance from his family, which enabled him to travel throughout Western Europe instead of settling down into a traditional academic career. He became particularly fond of three writers – Schopenhauer, Charles Darwin (1809-1882), and François de La

Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) – whose ideas were to become fundamental to his own philosophy. He also developed a philosophical friendship with Nietzsche that blossomed between the publications of Rée’s two most important works. Rée and Nietzsche were introduced by a common friend in Basel in 1873, whereupon Rée provided Nietzsche with a manuscript of his upcoming work entitled

Psychological Observations (1875). When this work was published anonymously two years later, Nietzsche recognized the work as Rée’s and sent him a letter of commendation. Rée wrote back, overwhelmingly flattered by Nietzsche’s approval of his philosophy. Nietzsche soon invited Rée to join him, his student Albert Brenner, and his friend Malwida von Meysenbug in Sorrento, situated on the western coast of Italy, in the fall of 1876. These four intellectuals spent that fall and the following spring living closely with one another and regularly discussing philosophy and literature. During their “Sorrento Idyll,” which has been examined in detail by Robin Small in Nietzsche and Rée: A Star Friendship (2005), Rée and Nietzsche exchanged ideas and began work on their next publications – The Origin of Moral Sensations (1877) and Human, All Too Human (1877). Consequently, and as we will see when we turn our attention to Nietzsche’s early moral philosophy in the next chapter, these two works share startlingly similar ideas.

Furthermore, it appears as though Rée changed Nietzsche’s philosophy far more than Nietzsche changed Rée’s, as Psychological Observations (written before Rée’s friendship with Nietzsche) and The Origin of Moral Sensations (written afterward) do not differ significantly in their treatment of the same topics. However, Human, All Too Human was a surprising departure by Nietzsche from his earlier work, which was produced under heavy Schopenhauerian and Wagnerian influences. Therefore, an analysis of Rée’s work is essential to an understanding of the sea change in Nietzsche’s philosophy that followed his split from Wagner in 1876. Rée’s ideas provided the basis, or at least the material, for Nietzsche’s new philosophical outlook, and his new moral philosophy in particular.

After their time in Sorrento, Rée and Nietzsche did not see each other again until 1882. Meanwhile, Rée attempted to become a professor of philosophy at either a German or a Swiss university. The historical nature of his philosophy, however, did not impress the departments to which he applied and his attempts at entering academia were ultimately unsuccessful. Following their reunion in 1882, Rée and Nietzsche made plans [^5] to move to Paris with a new female companion, Lou Salomé, and to revive the intellectual arrangement that had benefited them so greatly in Sorrento. However, after Rée and Nietzsche began vying for Salomé’s attention and devotion, Rée went off to live in Berlin with Salomé in 1883, leaving Nietzsche alone and distraught. Rée and Salomé lived with each other until Salomé married a Persian scholar in 1886, whereupon Rée himself was now alone and distraught. Robin Small, Nietzsche and Rée: A Star Friendship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 130.5 24

In 1885, however, Rée had published The Origin of Conscience (1885), which was intended to “add a positive historical content to his philosophical theory, drawing upon jurisprudence, history, and anthropology to provide empirical evidence for an account of the development of punishment as a social institution” (BW, xiv). The work received little attention and he decided to become a medical practitioner. After studying in Berlin and Zurich, he began nearly ten years of work as a country physician in Munich in 1890. After his older brother sold the family estate in 1900, thereby removing Rée’s financial support, Rée moved to Switzerland where he died the following year after mysteriously falling from a mountain path.