The so-called big five personality traits are a persistent finding of psychometrics. If these can be taken as more than just contingent facts emerging from statistical methods applied to data then they must be taken to signify some underlying reality from which they emerge in a systematic way. For example one might begin by grouping them in a certain way, say, openness with neuroticism as concerned with objective and subjective abstractions; extroversion and agreeableness as concerned with other selves as objective or subjective; and conscientiousness as concerned with objective reality. In each case the possibilities are mediated by functions of exploration, approach and avoidance. Following through with this line of thought, if the underlying reality is taken to be neuro-computational or evolutionary then the true subject of the human reality which the traits describe is either computational or evolutionary in the metaphysical sense, and thus either timeless mathematical necessity or pure temporal (retrospective) contingency. These are highly speculative extrapolations of some of the current syntheses. In every case what is at stake is an elision of the pure subject such as was glimpsed by the no longer current phenomenology. Nothing seems to be more natural and easy than such an elision - it's like falling off a log - making the pure subject out to be an effect. This is what used to be called inauthenticity or mauvaise-foi.