Doubt is overrated.

You can only doubt against an indubitable background. You might doubt anything, if you like, but you can't doubt everything. — Banno

Cogito ergo sum. — Descartes

it’s an assignment and i’m new to philosophy so it would really help me if you would give me direction on were to start, i was thinking on doing rewriting the question to is it normal to have doubt in life and doing an axe on yes it is and no it isn’t but i seems a little bit too easy

There are two important aspects to certainty:

1. The belief generating engine - logic

2. The input to that belief generating machine - propositions

I doubt both 1 and 2. Thus, I doubt everything including what I just said.

...?

If you had to write an essay about this question what would your axes be? — Lea

I think the best way is to take examples as axes and not some "formal systems" of doubt, eventhough philosophers love formal systems. Which could be a first example of doubt. Doubting the formal systems.

Doubt is a verbally expressible, informed, justified wavering between two options. When you doubt, you waver between A and B, and you know your reasons for doing so.

Worries, uncertainties, anxiety are more general, often not even verbally expressed/expressible. — baker

I don't think it's necessary doubt to be always about only two options.
Worries, anxieties, uncertainties etc just plant the seed for doubt.
As to correct my previous post, they aren't exactly the same but surely they are extremely connected and in most cases doubt involves them.

I don't think it's necessary doubt to be always about only two options. — dimosthenis9

At the level of decision making, it is. Before one can decide for a particular option, one has to whittle down the multitude of options until only two remain.

Worries, anxieties, uncertainties etc just plant the seed for doubt.
As to correct my previous post, they aren't exactly the same but surely they are extremely connected and in most cases doubt involves them.

This seems to be the popular view. But I think doubt is ethically motivated, it's a matter of being conscientious. As opposed to worries or anxieties which are much more general, vague.

I was wondering what are the thoughts of the community about this, let me know:) — Lea

Absolutely. We can and do live in doubt. Doubt is not denial. Doubt is the negative form of wonder. Doubt is compatible with belief.

Would you say there's some reason to suppose otherwise?

Read Pyrrho. He allegedly walked into the path of an oncoming wagon because he wasn't sure of the report of his senses and yet... — TheMadFool

There's no extant text from Pyrrho. Read the Outlines of Pyrrhonism (aka the Outlines of Skepticism in a recent translation) by Sextus Empiricus.

There's no extant text from Pyrrho. Read the Outlines of Pyrrhonism (aka the Outlines of Skepticism in a recent translation) by Sextus Empiricus. — Cabbage Farmer

Arigato!

Arigato! — TheMadFool

De nada.

@TheMadFool

Cogito ergo sum.
— Descartes

Again Nietzsche (BGE, 16), I couldn't resist:

Let the people suppose that knowledge means knowing things entirely; the philosopher must say to himself: "When I analyze the process that is expressed in this sentence, 'I think,' I find a whole series of daring assertions that would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to prove—for example, that it is I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' and, finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking—that I know what thinking is.

I think that's what @Banno is getting at. It's a bit of a rabbit hole, and might not be that productive when taken seriously.

It appears that this is a language issue. This thing that we're engaged in, doing, as we have this conversation has been labelled an action, an act viz. thinking from which follows the neccesity of a doer, a thinker [Cogito ergo sum]. Are we really doing anything while we're thinking?

@TheMadFool

Yeah, it's a bit of a language issue. I agree we usually define "thinking" as involving a "doer", and that is probably the most practical way. As for your question, Nietzsche remarks later in the same book that he considers thoughts as something that happen to you, rather than actions per se. He presents the observation (purely anecdotal) that often we think something before we realise that we are thinking (or something to that effect). But that's probably for a different post :)

As for the topic of doubt, I think that doubt is healthy in moderation (like most things... all things?) but we should not fail to consider the extremes. Can we "live in doubt", well, the imprecisions of language are evident here again... We can live with doubt, certainly, I would say it is even necessary. But sometimes enough is enough, we will never have perfect information all the time and too much doubt is, like you say about suffering[1], incapacitating.

[1] Despite my response in the other thread, I don't completely disagree about that either...

Yeah, it's a bit of a language issue. I agree we usually define "thinking" as involving a "doer", and that is probably the most practical way. As for your question, Nietzsche remarks later in the same book that he considers thoughts as something that happen to you, rather than actions per se. He presents the observation (purely anecdotal) that often we think something before we realise that we are thinking (or something to that effect). But that's probably for a different post :) — the affirmation of strife

Here's the problem: Before one can talk about action, the actor must already exist.

I think, therefore I am — René Descartes

Descartes has it backwards. To think (act) is to presuppose a thinker (actor). Circulus in probando.

As for the topic of doubt, I think that doubt is healthy in moderation (like most things... all things?) but we should not fail to consider the extremes. Can we "live in doubt", well, the imprecisions of language are evident here again... We can live with doubt, certainly, I would say it is even necessary. But sometimes enough is enough, we will never have perfect information all the time and too much doubt is, like you say about suffering[1], incapacitating.

[1] Despite my response in the other thread, I don't completely disagree about that either... — the affirmation of strife

We can doubt anything and eveeything. That's how it is I'm afraid.

We can doubt anything and eveeything. That's how it is I'm afraid. — TheMadFool

Sure, but I read the OP as questioning how much we should doubt. Maybe that's too much interpretation.

"Can we live in doubt?" It depends on what you mean by "...live in doubt?" I'm going to repeat some of what @Banno said, because we are largely in agreement, with some minor disagreement.

First, I believe Wittgenstein worked much of this out in his final notes called On Certainty. If you want to understand the concepts of knowing and doubting, there is no better work, as far as I know. My whole framework of what it means to know and doubt is built on W. final notes.

These two concepts work hand-in-hand, i.e., they must be seen as working together. Both are built on a framework of arational beliefs, so both knowing and doubting arise from a place beyond knowing and doubting, which is why I'm saying that they are built on a framework that's arational. The framework is much of the reality that surrounds us. A lot of work needs to be done in terms of what that framework is, and how it can change, but we have a good idea as to what some of these arational beliefs are. The classic examples are, "I have hands," "There are objects," "I live on Earth," "There are minds," etc. These beliefs form the backdrop of the reality that we find ourselves in. Think of these beliefs, as those that can't normally be doubted, there are exceptions, but generally they are foundational arational beliefs that form the substrata of our talk about knowing and doubting. Which means, that they arise out of the reality we find ourselves in. We can't make sense of these concepts apart from this reality. This means that there are limits to what can be known and doubted, given the limits of language. Although the limits of language is not static, i.e., it's not a set boundary (I'm not claiming this is all based on Wittgenstein, some of it is, some of it isn't, but I think it follows from much of what W. said.).

So, again, you have to think of language as the soil (Language itself, grows out of the basic beliefs that form the reality that surrounds us.) that gives birth to the concept of doubting. Without that soil there would be no doubting, period, end of story. So, doubting is a linguistic phenomena (primarily), and as such, it takes place in a language-game (If you aren't familiar with language-games, there are plenty of threads that talk about it. More importantly, read the PI.). The language-game of doubting is very similar to the language-game of knowing. One of the primary drivers of these language-games (knowing and doubting) is justification, viz., do you have the proper justification for your knowledge, and do you have the proper justification for your doubts? Descartes missed the mark completely, that's all I'll say about that here.

So, to partly answer your question, "Can you live in doubt?" If you mean perpetual doubt, no. But, there are rational doubts, and this is a healthy thing. However, sometimes people doubt, where there is no justification for the doubt, and it's here that confusion about doubting happens. There are also areas where it's not so clear, in terms of whether its rational to doubt or not, so this is not always black and white. The same is true of what we know.

If you want to learn more, read On Certainty, and what spawned On Certainty.

Sure, but I read the OP as questioning how much we should doubt. Maybe that's too much interpretation. — the affirmation of strife

A good point. Nevertheless, once we're reduced to attempts at finding out how much doubt is acceptable, we've already conceded that there's a problem viz. that everything and anything is doubtable. I regard the enterprise of moderating skepticism as only to sugar coat the bitter pill that we must all swallow.

Probably not just doubt. You'd get into all these recursions and never do anything. But one can certainly doubt, amongt other reactions/actions/processes and live. One can even doubt everything, for some period of time. Then you'll need a meal and probably some confidence it's in the fridge or can be ordered by phone.
It's tricky to mount a skeptical argument about everything, since you won't be doubting certain things when you mount that argument.
But one could sort of sit in a stunned doubting state, without making arguments and doubt away at everything. But this would tend to reduce your chances of survival (and would likely lead to depression) if done too often/too much

Doubt is merely a waste-data filtering function, you do not necessarily want to doubt, but need to. If doubt was unavailable, I couldn't discover the truth of a false claim, half the time...

Detection is a normal mental function, we lose faith in the detector if there is doubt.

Is there anyone out there? [short period of silence] No. Move on.

Metaphorically, a object going off a radar. To be linked with: an idea going out of bounds of our internal logistics; to which then it falls to doubt to help us determine.

Is there reason to suggest that doubting here is wrong?

There is no such thing as reasonable doubt.