ABSTRACT
Hegel's system then is intended to answer a variety of problems and its features can be explained in part by reference to them. One has to start at the beginning of the Logic, or perhaps of the Phenomenology, and not, for example, in the middle of the Philosophy of Nature. The fact that a series of elements, of beliefs for example, is self-sustaining in this sense does not in itself guarantee that it is the only possible self-sustaining system and does not, therefore, establish that it is to be accepted in preference to some alternative. Hegel could perhaps be interpreted as meaning not that the authors's beliefs form a strict circle of justification, but that it is a mistake to regard some of the authors's beliefs as epistemically primary and others as resting on them, that all the authors's beliefs both support, and are supported by, each other.
