Arthur F. Bentley was interested in the language of social science and the practical effects of terminological use upon the conduct of enquiry. He developed a wholly new social science vocabulary in his efforts to unblock research. After making original pragmatist-like contributions to political science study, Bentley gradually embraced a more analytic form of pragmatism to aid him in unravelling a number of linguistic and psychological knots in social science methodology. Early pragmatists accepted the piecemeal, incomplete, and practical nature of pragmatism. Hence, pragmatism did battle early on with modernist philosophy frameworks, such as positivism, rationalism, idealism, and so forth – but it also sought to avoid the charge of relativism being attached to its instruments of enquiry. Throughout most of its history, science and social science have been in the business of grounding research processes and products upon some foundation or core of knowledge, coupled with transcendental rules or algorithms like 'the scientific method', or 'rationality' to guide enquiry.