Abstract
,sRTHUR F. BENTLEY is one of America's distinguished A pioneers in political science, sociology, psychology, and the w Xlogic of scientific inquiry. Like other pioneers he has had to wait for the recognition that is his due, but that recognition has come from the leaders in the fields he has cultivated. Now it is spreading among a wider public. Reviews and discussions of his varied contributions have appeared in Europe and America over the past six decades, especially the last two, but no one has attempted so far to present the leading themes and methods of inquiry that Bentley has been led to develop during his long lifetime. More important than any single work of his is the cumulative impact of his writings, the pattern that his diverse inquiries form. This essay will sketch the main outlines of Bentley's life and try to show how his work grew out of specific conditions, experiences, and interests. I shall endeavour to state the central objectives and results of Bentley's successive investigations so that an overall view of the high points of Bentley's life-Rsork and influence can be obtained. Bentley then can be seen as a part of the social process and cultural setting of America since I870. A. F. Bentley's works chart his inquiry into the natural and social cosmos. They range from his youthful yet solid study of The Condition of the TVestern Farmer (I893) to his monumental 7Che Process of Government (I908) and Behavior, Knowledge, Fact (I935). Other valuable works are his Relativity in Man and Society (I926), and Linguistic Analsis of Mathematics (I932). In I949 appeared Bentley's and John Devey's important co-operative critique of modern logic, Knowing and the Known. These earlier books were crowned by Bentley's Inquiry into Inqairies, published in I954. This volume of selected essays brought together some of the best writing that Bentley had done over the previous forty years on subjects that ran from 'A Sociological Critique of Behaviorism' to criticisms of formal logicians and physicists for basic errors in the theory of knowledge. 4o
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