ABSTRACT
The last statement is itself an instance of the kind of act which it licenses. For it stakes out the grounds of my discourse by relying essentially on the very grounds thus staked out; my confident admission of circularity being justified only by my conviction, that in so far as I express my utmost understanding of my intellectual responsibilities as my own personal belief, I may rest assured of having fulfilled the ultimate requirements of self-criticism; that indeed I am obliged to form such personal beliefs and can hold them in a responsible manner, even though I recognize that such a claim can have no other justification than such as it derives from being declared in the very terms which it endorses. Logically, the whole of my argument is but an elaboration of this circle; it is a systematic course in teaching myself to hold my own beliefs.
