What is "critical philosophy"

Critical \Crit"ic*al\ (kr[i^]t"[i^]*kal), a. [See Critic, n., Crisis.]

1. Qualified to criticise, or pass judgment upon, literary or artistic productions.

   It is submitted to the judgment of more critical ears to direct and determine what is graceful and what is not.
   --Holder.

2. Pertaining to criticism or the critic's art; of the nature of a criticism; accurate; as, critical knowledge; a critical dissertation.

3. Inclined to make nice distinctions, or to exercise careful judgment and selection; exact; nicely judicious.

   Virgil was so critical in the rites of religion, that he would never have brought in such prayers as these, if they had not been agreeable to the Roman customs.
   --Bp. Stillingfleet.

4. Inclined to criticise or find fault; fastidious; captious; censorious; exacting.

   O gentle lady, do not put me to 't, For I am nothing, if not critical.
   --Shak.

5. Characterized by thoroughness and a reference to principles, as becomes a critic; as, a critical analysis of a subject.

6. [See Crisis.] Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis, turning point, or specially important juncture; important as regards consequences; hence, of doubtful issue; attended with risk; dangerous; as, the critical stage of a fever; a critical situation.

   Our circumstances are indeed critical.
   --Burke.

   The small moment, the exact point, the critical minute, on which every good work so much depends.
   --South.

   Critical angle (Optics), that angle of incidence of a luminous ray at which it is wholly reflected, and no portion of it transmitted. The sine of this angle is the reciprocal of the refractive index of the medium.

   Critical philosophy, the metaphysical system of Kant; -- so called from his most important work, the ``Critique of Pure Reason.''

Attributed to Immanuel Kant, the critical philosophy movement sees the primary task of philosophy as criticism rather than justification of knowledge; criticism, for Kant, meant judging as to the possibilities of knowledge before advancing to knowledge itself (from the Greek kritike (techne), or "art of judgment"). The basic task of philosophers, according to this view, is not to establish and demonstrate theories about reality, but rather to subject all theories—including those about philosophy itself—to critical review, and measure their validity by how well they withstand criticism.

"Critical philosophy" is also used as another name for Kant's philosophy itself. Kant said that philosophy's proper enquiry is not about what is out there in reality, but rather about the character and foundations of experience itself. We must first judge how human reason works, and within what limits, so that we can afterwards correctly apply it to sense experience and determine whether it can be applied at all to metaphysical objects.