In this essay I intend to show the contribution of Anerkennung to a critical theory of intersubjectivity. The Anerkennung reveals itself as a theoretical plexus, that overcomes the aporias of the two theories of intersubjectivity developed by the exponents of the second and third generation of the so-called ‘Frankfurter Schule’. Both Habermas’ argumentative theory and Honneth’s theory of recognition present a defective concept of intersubjectivity, insofar as they exclude an ontological consideration that invests the relation itself: intersubjectivity is simply assumed as relation-between-subjects. The sidelining of the ontological problematic not only puts at risk the dialectical consideration of intersubjectivity but also depowers the critical theory that intends to offer an answer to the fundamental ethical question of any theory of intersubjectivity: why do we have to recognize ourselves? To answer this question, I will turn, in conclusion, to a few places in the Phänomenologie des Geistes, in which recognition takes on a properly ontological valence. Only on this basis is it possible to understand intersubjectivity as a critical and transformative dynamic.