The publication of a major work by Paul Ricoeur, 'La Mémoire, l'Histoire, L'Oubli,' provides an opportunity for a real dialogue between philosophers and historians. This is not the first time that Ricoeur has attempted dialogue with historians; his first effort in this area happened fifty years ago, a time unpropitious for hybrid epistemologies. His trilogy on time, 'Temps et Recit' (1983-85), was better attended to, but it too remained on the edge of historians' consciousness, considered purely philosophical. In the present time of questioning of basic notions of historical practice - truth, causality, memory, time - it is appropriate to take the measure of Ricoeur's contribution to the historical discipline.