This paper defends Kant's conception of architectonic as furthering emancipatory reforms of critical philosophy. The author argues that while Lambert's reform of architectonic was the catalyst for Kant's attention to the term, Rousseau was important for Kant's conception of what architectonical thinking should be for philosophy. Kant's cosmopolitan meaning of architectonic requires that it not be based on an analogy to an architect, but on that of a "teacher in the ideal" who attempts to further essential ends of human reason (...) by discovering systems that can interrogate doctrines for their significance for the whole vocation of humanity. (shrink)