As we saw in Parts I and II Hegel and Heidegger are forced into the antinomy of mourning and melancholia because each conceives of desire as flowing from a lack. In order to solve this antinomy I would like to propose a model of desire that is not predicated on a lack. In the Introduction we looked briefly at Spinoza's conception of desire as a model of desire not predicated on a constitutive lack. I would like to return to Spinoza now in order to elucidate further this conception of desire as it relates to Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus. The full elucidation of this concept of desire entails the discussion of two additional topics, both of which are closely related. The first is bodies, or objects that may affect and be affected by other objects. The discussion of bodies will allow us to examine the troublesome and obscure ‘body without organs’.

What is the best way to understand a body? According to Deleuze and Guattari, the best way to understand a body is to ask what it is capable of. This is of course an immensely difficult question if one is talking about a human body. Deleuze and Guattari often quote Spinoza's claim in this regard: ‘no one has yet been taught by experience what the body can accomplish solely by the laws of nature’.