Ted, I am not sure that you will answer this: Let me try again because I can't seem to understand why you don't get my basic problem with what you are saying.  There is no way to discuss, refute, confirm, measure, sense, model, theorize, and, as far as I can see, even define, "pure indeterminateness" and the contentless Ego.  So how in the world can you use it to impact any scientific theory in any way, whether it be the theory of evolution or sociobiology? You quote Hegel, as somehow, you don't really say how, being essential to Marx's attempt to make a theoretical historical model of capitalism and, to some extent history in general.  Your quote is the following: <div style="direction: ltr;">"The Will Proper, or the Higher Appetite, is (a) pure indeterminateness of the Ego, which as such has no limitation or a </div><div style="direction: ltr;">content which is immediately extant through nature but is indifferent </div>towards any and every determinateness. (b) The Ego can, at the same time, pass over to a determinateness and make a choice of some one or other and then actualize it." (Hegel, The Philosophical Propaedeutic, p. 2) The "Universal Will" is "the Will which is Lawful and Just or in accordance with Reason." (Philosophical Propaedeutic p. 1)"__ You use this quote to say that sociobiology is a determinateness and thus incompatible with Marx.  So my basic problem here is that if the Ego is "pure indeterminateness" defined as without "content which is immediately extant through nature" where does it impact anything that an evolutionist, sociobiologist or even an astrologer might say?  Now I put aside the question of how anything that has no "content which is immediately extant through nature" can be said to have any thing to do with "nature" at all ....  (And I already have attempted to explain to you the historical origins of Hegel's blunder in this respect, but you ignored it.) If the Ego is without "content" then nothing in a scientific theory or theoretical model will ever have anything to do or say about it.  Scientific theories and models may themselves be empty (astrology, much economics) and not deal with the supposed reality they aim to model, but in that case they are simply setting up rules for a game.  In order for a scientific theory to "work" at all it must ignore all such "non-stuff" as "souls" and "spirits" and the "supernatural" and the "contentless" Ego.  What ever a scientific theory says, it will say nothing about pure Nothing or pure indeterminateness.  It will say nothing about a "contentless" Ego, one way or another.  Furthermore your concept of the contentless Ego can have nothing to add or subtract from sociobiology or any other theory.  It can't impact a theoretical model one way or another.  If a theory finds that it is in our genetic code to dance; and we just "gotta dance" no matter what, then as far as your contentless ego is concerned there is content in the "gotta dance" gene and thus the contentless Ego is not-there.  This is why from the beginning I said that you are making a category mistake.  You are taking a metaphysical concept (not even a phenomenological one, not even one with any content) and _a priori_ applying it to pragmatic hit-or-miss theories that may be partially right or all wrong but must deal with a world of "content" in order to be either right or wrong.  On the other hand what you are saying is not even wrong. "Pure indeterminateness" and the contentless Ego doesn't fit into any scientific theory (quantum mechanics or sociobiology) because it can conform to any theory if you want it to.  I ask you please to deal with the issue here, instead of avoiding it, because if I am wrong I may learn something. Jerry