The emergence of Memory studies as a trans-disciplinary field is part of a larger orientation in the last four decades toward the exploration of how the past is experienced and enacted by individuals and groups. Approaching this general theme through the specific term of memory is not obvious. In order to develop the epistemological discussion within memory studies, it is therefore helpful to try to situate memory within a larger philosophical context in relation to theories of temporality and historicity. Through the lens of Bergson’s life-philosophy, Husserlian phenomenology and its hermeneutic and deconstructive legacy, the article focuses on three fundamental aspects of memory: as the privileged sense of time, as the site of the experience of embodied selfhood, and as a locus for the interior/exterior distinction. It warns against the reification of memory in the service of disciplinary consistency, arguing for a deepened dialogue with modern philosophies of consciousness and existential ontology.