Yes.
In fairness, often there is no top or bottom bracketing volcanic ash or other igneous rock to where you find a fossil, so you can be in a situation where you can say “it’s no older than X” or “not younger than Y” or have a situation where you have no bracketing igneous rock, but some sort of wide spread fossil that appears for a short time that is well-bracketed and you base the age on the previously-determined age of the other fossils.
In that circumstance, the circle is kind of correct, but omits the fact that the age of fossil was determined somewhere else.
Half-truths are the most seductive kind of lies.