reasoning

There is a branch of philosophy concerned specifically with how we justify our beliefs. The chief concern of "epistemic justification" is determining what counts as a good reason for believing something and how we come about those reasons. While there is a smorgasbord of different theories, one of the bigger is known as "coherentism."

Coherentism is a view that settles for circular reasoning. It does so knowingly because the alternatives are just as bad, if not worse.