The article offers the author's view on the epistemological transformation of the history of philosophy, which nowadays acquires the status of not philosophical but historical science. The author proposes to consider the transformation of the history of philosophy into the history of thought from the point of view of the transformation of the Central figure of this discipline, which in the terms proposed by J. Deleuze can be described as an implicit return of the figure of the Sage, once displaced from the space of Humanities by the figure of the Philosopher. The author shows why the history of philosophy was able to acquire the status of an independent philosophical science, concentrating around the figure of the Philosopher, aspiring to knowledge, but not possessing it monopolistically. Thus, she was able to get rid of discrediting her reputation doxography and reach the level of theoretical knowledge. The philosopher is not identical to the Sage as the bearer of knowledge, translated by tradition and legitimized by belonging to this tradition. Historical and philosophical discourse, the author argues, tends to bring the figure of the Philosopher closer to the figure of the Scientist, attributing to the first as an attribute of cognitive activity. In this case, the binary opposition knowledge/cognition is formed, in which the second element takes precedence over the first one. The historical and philosophical discourse itself is articulated in a discursive formation that affirms historicism as its ideological Foundation, which potentially translates the history of philosophy into the register of historical Sciences, bringing it out of the space of philosophy. Its belonging to the field of philosophy is possible only to the extent that philosophy itself accepts historicism as its doctrinal basis. In the second half of the XX century there is a discursive translation of the history of philosophy into the register of historical science through its transformation into the history of thought. The figure of the philosopher is replaced by the figure of the Scientist, who by virtue of his direct involvement in tradition and focus on the transformation of his own personality has features characteristic of the figure of the Sage.