Paul Rabinow

Modernity is not a stage of history, but an attitude toward history.

The task of anthropology is to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar.

Foucault's work is not about power, but about the conditions of possibility for certain forms of knowledge and experience.

Critique is not a matter of saying that things are not right as they are. It is a matter of pointing out on what kinds of assumptions, what kinds of familiar, unchallenged, unconsidered modes of thought the practices that we accept rest.

The human sciences are not about discovering universal truths, but about understanding the historical and cultural specificity of human experience.

To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world—and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.

The anthropologist's job is not to speak for others, but to create a space in which others can speak for themselves.

Biopower is a power that takes life as its object, a power that manages populations and individuals in terms of their biological existence.

The concept of 'biosociality' refers to the ways in which new forms of collective identity and social organization are emerging around shared biological conditions and experiences.

The ethical subject is not a given, but a historical and cultural construction.

To understand Foucault is to understand that power is not simply repressive, but also productive.

The contemporary is not a chronological period, but a mode of experience, a way of being in the world.

Anthropology is a form of inquiry that seeks to understand the diverse ways in which humans make sense of their lives.

The challenge of anthropology is to move beyond mere description to a deeper understanding of the meanings and values that shape human action.

Reason is not a universal faculty, but a historically and culturally specific practice.

The human is not a fixed category, but a constantly evolving concept.

To study culture is to study the ways in which people give meaning to their lives.

The anthropologist must be a translator, not just of words, but of worlds.

The concept of 'life itself' has become a central object of political and ethical concern in the contemporary world.

The question of what it means to be human is always a historical and cultural question.