ABSTRACT
Karl Popper was born at Himmelhof, in the district of Vienna, on 28 July 1902, the last of three children after two sisters. His family was of Jewish origin, and the atmosphere in which he grew up was, as he put it, ‘decidedly bookish’ (UQ: 10): his father, Simon, was a lawyer and his mother, Jenny Schiff, came from a family in which music was enthusiastically cultivated. The personalities of both parents made their mark on the child’s development. The father, ‘more of a scholar than a lawyer’ (UQ: 11), translated the classics, greatly appreciated philosophy, and took a keen interest in social problems. He gave the young Karl numerous opportunities to channel his precocious intelligence: for example, the portraits of Schopenhauer and Darwin hanging in his father’s studio aroused in him a questioning curiosity, ‘even before [he] had learned to read’ (NSEM: 339). His mother, on the other hand, passed on to him such a passion for music that between 1920 and 1922 he seriously thought of taking it up as a career. Even after this idea was abandoned, his love for music did not diminish and indeed was fundamental in the development of his philosophical thinking.
