the son of a trained weaver who became a textile designer, feigl was born in reichenberg (liberec), bohemia into a jewish (though not religious) family. he matriculated at the university of vienna in 1922 and studied physics and philosophy under moritz schlick, hans hahn, hans thirring, and karl bühler. he became one of the members of the vienna circle in 1924 and would be one of the few circle members (along with schlick and friedrich waismann) to have extensive conversations with ludwig wittgenstein and karl popper. feigl received his doctorate at vienna in 1927 for his dissertation "chance and law: an epistemological analysis of the roles of probability and induction in the natural sciences." he published his first book, "theorie und erfahrung in der physik" (theory and experience in physics), in 1929.