Nietzsche's general project is as follows: to introduce the concepts of meaning and value (sens et valeur) into philosophy. Nietzsche never concealed that a philosophy of meaning and values had to be a critique (une critique). That Kant did not achieve true critique because he did not know how to present his problem in terms of values is one of the main motivations for Nietzsche's work. Nevertheless, the theory of values has, in modern philosophy, produced a new obedience and submission. Even phenomenology, through its apparatus, has contributed to placing the Nietzschean inspiration, often present in it, at the service of contemporary obedience. But when it comes to Nietzsche, we must, on the contrary, start from the following fact: the philosophy of values, as he conceived and constructed it, is the true achievement of critique, the only way in which total critique, the work of philosophy with the "slashes of the pickaxe," can be achieved. The philosophy of values, in fact, involves a critical reversal. On the one hand, values appear or give themselves away as principles: evaluation presupposes the values from which phenomena are evaluated. But, on the other hand, and more profoundly, values themselves presuppose evaluations, the "points of view of evaluation," from which their own value derives. The critical problem is this: the value of values, the valuation from which their value arises, a problem created by their creation. Evaluation is defined as the different element from the values to which it corresponds: an element both critical and creative. This is because, when referred to their element, evaluations cease to be values, but become ways of being, modes of existence of those who judge and evaluate; that is, they are used precisely as principles of values by virtue of which they judge. This is why we always have the kinds of beliefs, emotions, and ideas that suit us according to our way of being and our style of life.
