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Critique

In Kant, critique does not mean fault-finding but examination: the inquiry into what a faculty can achieve and where its limits lie.

The word comes from the Greek krinein: to distinguish, to judge. Critique, in Kant, is the reflective examination of the validity and limits of a capacity — in the case of the “Critique of Pure Reason”, reason examines itself: it sets up a court of its own that secures its rightful claims and dismisses groundless pretensions.

Kant understands this examination as the preparation (“propaedeutic”) for a future scientific metaphysics. He calls his era the “age of criticism”, to which everything must submit — and three major works carry out the programme: the critiques of pure reason, of practical reason and of the power of judgment.

Source: Wikipedia: Critique