The Deleuzian Critique of Pure Fiction

Conceptual Actors and the Image of Thought  

“OBVIOUSLY,” DELEUZE SAYS, “CONCEPTS HAVE A HISTORY”(QP 23). That is, each concept has a story to tell, although it may be the kind of story told by idiots, full of sound and fury. It perhaps follows that philosophy presents its own history as a narrative of concepts, a fable of thought that must recommence each time from the beginning, in response to the childlike question, “what is x?” For example: “What is philosophy?”-a person? an animal? a hero, a god? a day or hour of the week? “What is death?” Or simply, ‘What is an event?” Faced with these questions, the aged classical philosopher-storyteller might assume a look of an inscrutable mystery, prefacing his response with “Here begins a long and inexhaustible story.” This introduces the listener to a duration that has nothing to do with the “Age of Philosophy.”