“Slavoj Zizek is known for his eccentric Hegelian-Lacanian philosophy and his free-associating style, where he often peppers references to anything from Hollywood to theology to Kafka novels, alongside jokes about sex and other obscene matters, in his rather large collection of works which is still growing by the year. However, For They Know Not What They Do is one of his rare sustained theoretical works that, together with Tarrying With The Negative, The Ticklish Subject, and The Parallax View, almost maps out his full philosophical “system” - if one can call it that - i.e. the Lacanian reading of Hegel (and German Idealism in general), and vice versa.
The “almost” is the operative word here, for while For They Know Not What They Do is a comprehensive work in which Zizek “corrects” mistakes in his previous work, The Sublime Object of Ideology (such as his rather crude understanding of the Lacanian triad of Imaginary-Symbolic-Real), it is still not complete (in fact the book ends rather abruptly); this is a feeling shared by others who have read Zizek’s theoretical works that while there are lots of good things he just doesn’t seem to go to the end (even though he often says he does). What Zizek already has in the book, though, will probably keep most busy for a long time.
Zizek mentioned in one of his LSE lectures that he has almost finished his self-declared magnum opus on Hegel and German Idealism, which apparently comes out at over 500 pages and growing - one sympathizes with those who have to review it - so that will probably another piece in the puzzle. But for someone who had almost singled-handedly revived the fortunes of both Lacan and Hegel, that is just icing on the cake.”