Rabinow is known for his development of an "anthropology of reason". If anthropology is understood as being composed of anthropos + logos, then anthropology can be taken up as a practice of studying how the mutually productive relations of knowledge, thought, and care are given form within shifting relations of power. More recently, Rabinow has developed a distinctive approach to what he calls an "anthropology of the contemporary" that moves methodologically beyond modernity as an object of study or as a metric to order all inquiries.