On Traces and Addends:

Reflections on Bensusan’s Memory Assemblages

Abstract

This paper opens a dialogue between the philosophical account of memory developed by Bensusan in Memory Assemblages and contemporary debates in the analytic philosophy of memory. I take the notion of the trace as a point of departure to examine the way Bensusan shifts from the traditional view of memory as a psychological faculty toward a broader ontological perspective—pan-mnemism—according to which memory constitutes a fundamental dimension of reality. Embracing this move, Bensusan offers an account of the conditions of possibility that underlie memory as a psychological term. I then analyse the conception of memory that derives from this framework, where traces do not preserve stable contents from the past but instead function as open structures that acquire meaning only through “addends.” I contrast this view with classical causal theories of memory and argue that Bensusan’s proposal can be understood as a radicalization of constructivist and post-causal theories, one that emphasizes the situated character of memory.