In recent scholarship on the Enlightenment it has become a truism that this era must not be regarded as the ‘Age of Reason’, but rather as the ‘Age of Criticism’. Whereas the former label has acquired derogatory connotations, signifying, among other things, the Enlightenment's naïve and destructive faith in the omnipotence of reason, the latter label and the concept of criticism appear to depict more accurately the cultural ideology which motivated this movement. Above all, however, the label ‘Age of Criticism’ is more accurate because it is compatible with the way in which some of the leading thinkers of the Enlightenment saw their age. Thus, in the preface to the Critique of Pure Reason Kant identifies his age as one of Kritik to which everything must submit.