Bentley, Arthur F. (1870–1957)

Arthur F. Bentley was born in Freeport, Illinois, and died in Paoli, Indiana. A political theorist, he took part in the revolt against formalism carried on by Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841–1935), Roscoe Pound (1870–1964), and John Dewey (1859–1952).

In 1892, at Johns Hopkins, Bentley met the economist Richard Ely (1854–1943), who influenced Bentley's early scholarly work. The Condition of the Western Farmer as Illustrated by the Economic History of a Nebraska Township (1893) is a model of socioeconomic inquiry. During the years 1895 and 1896, he met Gustav von Schmoller (1838–1917), Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911), and Georg Simmel (1858–1918), whose group theory influenced his thought. In 1897, Bentley established with Dewey the most significant relationship of his intellectual life and undertook newspaper work in ...