Hope
and fear for Spinoza are basically interchangeable, they are directly
related. We couldn’t have one without the other, since there are both
instances in which we hope for something to happen, and in which we hope
for something not to happen. It could thus be said that we fear this
something from occurring. Spinoza defines hope as an “inconsistent joy”
which rises from an image of a past or future thing which we doubt the
outcome of. Fear is defined as an “inconsistent sadness” which also
arises from an image of a past or future thing which we doubt the
outcome of (IIIP18S2). He goes on to state that if doubt is removed from
these, hope becomes confidence and fear despair, since we hope for
something that we believe will bring us joy, and we fear the thing that
we believe will bring sadness. But this is all in our minds, and we
chose to believe that which is favorable to us, and deny things that we
do not want to happen. Yet all things mean something different to each
one of us; something I hope for could be someone else’s greatest fear
(IIIP51).
Spinoza
believes that hope and fear govern a lot of people’s lives (Nadler
206). People spend their lives either really desiring something to
happen, or are in fear of the consequences of it happening. However what
people don’t realize is that they have no real control, that they are
all predetermined. But because men see themselves as being free, and as
being causes of their ends, they buy into their hopes and fears and act
according to them.This is how superstitions and omens are born, and
begin to slowly take over people’s lives (IIIP50). Nadler notes, as does
Spinoza in his TTP, that hope and fear are the very foundation of
organized religion (206). People so badly want something to to happen or
to not happen, that they would believe almost anything to help or
prevent it from happening. But this is not a healthy way to live, being
in a constant state of anxiety would make anyone go crazy. Especially
since we have no real control over our ends anyway, so both emotions are
just a waste of nerve cells.
Spinoza maintains that the emotions of hope and fear cannot be good through themselves (4P47), for they are not able to exist without pain. And, as we know, pain (i.e. bad) is the lack of power. What however is the distinction between hope and pleasure (pleasure, for Spinoza, is essentially good)? Hope is not devoid of pain, since, as you explicated above, it is always constituted with a fear that something might not happen. Pleasure, in contrast, is essentially good, as it does not involve the lack of power, rather it increases the power. Hope and fear however have a positive role to play by restraining the excessive pleasure (4P43). Unsurprisingly, Spinoza's solution to the problem of hope and fear is the guidance of reason which keeps humans away from the emotions that are unaware of the necessity of things (4P50).
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