What is Trace? - The Philosophy of Jacques Derridas

Trace refers to the mark, track, or impression left in the mind by a word’s absence (as occurs when deconstructing a word that has been printed under erasure). Jacques Derrida’s concept of trace highlights the temporal aspect of a word. While the word appears in the present, the trace in consciousness includes not only the meaning in the present but also its disconnection from future and past meanings.
Jacques Derrida was heavily influenced by Freudian Psychoanalysis and connections can be made between the temporal aspect of meaning as demonstrated with Sous Rature text and reoccurrence of traumatic objects in consciousness.
Acknowledging that psychic concepts and linguistic signifiers are bound to repeat in the future led Derrida to what he called hauntology. Hauntology (which, of course, plays on the common philosophical approach to meaning - ontology), states that ontology contains a future ghost in the form of future repetitions and meanings undiscernible in the present.
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