Bon Mots: Delueze on Philosophy

In the interview “On Philosophy” in Negotiations (Columbia University Press, 1995, p.136), Deleuze remarks:

Philosophy is always a matter of inventing concepts. I’ve never been worried about going beyond metaphysics or any death of philosophy. The function of philosophy, still thoroughly relevant, is to create concepts. Nobody else can take over that function. Philosophy has of course always had its rivals, from Plato’s “rivals” through Zarathustra’s clown. These days, information technology, communications, and advertising are taking over the words “concept” and “creative,” and these “conceptualists” constitute an arrogant breed that reveals the activity of selling to be capitalism’s supreme thought, the cogito of the marketplace. Philosophy feels small and lonely confronting such forces, but the only way it’s going to die is by choking with laughter.

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