Freedom” is thus inherently retroactive:

“Freedom” is thus inherently retroactive: at its most elementary, it is not simply a free act which, out of nowhere, starts a new causal link, but a retroactive act of determining which link or sequence of necessities will determine us. Here, one should add a Hegelian twist to Spinoza: freedom is not simply “recognized / known necessity,” but recognized / assumed necessity, the necessity constituted / actualized through this recognition.

– Slavoj Zizek, Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism




Zizek's books on Hegel: