His first main work The Critique of Power: Reflective Stages in a Critical Social Theory explores the affinities between the Frankfurt School and Michel Foucault.

His recent work Reification reformulates this key "Western Marxist" concept in terms of intersubjective relations of recognition and power.

For Honneth, all forms of reification are due to intersubjectively based pathologies rather than the structural character of social systems such as capitalism as argued by Karl Marx and György Lukács.

In The Idea of Socialism, Honneth calls for a revision of socialist theory in order to make it relevant for the 21st century, based on a criticism of the socialist theory of historical materialism, ignorance of political rights and social differentiation in modern societies, and overemphasis on the working class as a revolutionary subject.

In order to fully realize the three principles of the French Revolution, Honneth suggests three revisions: Replacing economic determinism with historical experimentation inspired by John Dewey, expanding social freedom – mutual dependence and cooperation among members of society – to the other spheres of modern society (i.e. the political and the private), as well as addressing all citizens of the democratic sphere.