He has maintained dialogues with philosophers such as Jürgen Habermas, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault, as well as Karl-Otto Apel, William McBride, Seyla Benhabib, Iris Marion Young, David M. Rasmussen, Judith Butler, Bhikhu Parekh, Ashis Nandy, and Tu Weiming, among others.

He has written on G. W. F. Hegel, Martin Heidegger, Gadamer, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Theodor W. Adorno; Jürgen Habermas, Karl-Otto Apel, Louis Althusser, Foucault, Derrida, Paul Tillich, Raimon Panikkar, and Enrique Dussel.

Dallmayr's philosophy and political theory favors self-other relations over ego, dialogue over monologue, relationality over static identity, ethical conduct over the abstract knowledge of normative rules, equal democratic lateral relationships over hierarchies of domination, and intercultural and cosmopolitan perspectives over chauvinistic hegemonism.

He criticizes the egocentrism of modern Western thought, including its “anthropocentric and subjectivist thrust” and “possessive individualism.”[5] Yet this critique does not mean anti-humanism and the “end of man,” as advocated by some postmodern thinkers.

To the metaphysical paradigm rooted in individual subjectivity he opposes the emerging outlook emphasizing human connectedness, anchored in (Heideggerian) “care” (Sorge) and “solicitude” (Fürsorge).

Dallmayr highlights the importance of Heidegger's critique of Western metaphysics, especially Cartesian rationalism with its focus on the cogito, which was the root of the split between mind and matter, subject and object, self and other, humans and the world.

[15] He articulates from a philosophical perspective the relevance of Heidegger's diagnosis of the condition of contemporary society characterized by mass culture, the depersonalized “they” (das Man), the instrumental reason, oppressive power (Macht) and manipulative domination or machination (Machenschaft).

The qualitatively new perspective, highlighted by Dallmayr, is that contradictions and perilous tendencies in Western society are now escalating to the level of being global problems, which put us at the precipice of self-destruction—nuclear or ecological.

Dallmayr sees the problems of Western modernity in the monologic mindset, which was rooted in Cartesian ego cogito and became an instrumental rationality coupled with egocentric will to power and domination.

He advocates for dialogue in theory and practice, as a means to overcome monologic unilateralism and for establishing the relationships of mutual understanding and collaboration, aiming for peaceful coexistence and justice.

[18] His appreciation of the dialogical trends in Western thought served as “possible springboards to broader, cross-cultural or trans-cultural explorations.”[19] Dallmayr broadened his intercultural horizon through engagement in dialogue with the philosophical traditions of India, China, and the Islamic world.

Dallmayr analyses the philosophical-theological works of some twentieth-century philosophers and theologians, including Tillich, Thomas Merton, and Panikkar, highlighting the commonalities in their thought.

[25] All three insisted on the need for radical “metanoia,” meaning a “turn around or Kehre” or spiritual “conversion of heart.”[26] They aimed for a holistic recovery from modern fragmentation, and sought to connect—in fruitful tension—the sacred with the secular, theology with philosophy, Christian teachings with the humanities, and the theoretical understanding with social praxis.

Dallmayr examines their intensive interest in Zen Buddhism as distinct cases of the Christian-Buddhist encounter during the past half century: the intersection of Tillich's dialectical theology with Japanese Buddhist thought; the dialogue of Thomas Merton's trans-individualism with Zen Buddhism; and the encounter of Raimon Panikkar's Vedantic thoughts with the Buddhist “silence of God.” Dallmayr pays special attention to the intercultural-interreligious and spiritual dimensions of Panikkar's works.

He writes, “The Buddha’s own praxis, anchored in his freedom, by no means seeks to advance his own status or influence; his karuna resides in ‘the superabundance of his state of ‘grace.’”[28] What saves us is “the refusal to entertain any doctrine or ideology that pretends to deliver authoritative ‘knowledge’ of God.’”[29] The Buddha’s teaching is directed to a “profound freedom” or total liberation from both external coercion and interior will to power, which, in turn, “paves the way toward a released humanity no longer entrapped in aggressive individual or collective identities.”[30] In reflecting on the meaning of spirituality, as it has been expressed in various religious traditions, Dallmayr mentions as the core feature of religion and spiritual experience “the transgression from self to other, from ‘immanence’ to (some kind of) ‘transcendence.’” Spirituality should “participate in this transgressive or transformative movement,” to be a vessel for “navigating the straits between immanence and transcendence, between the human and the divine.” Spirituality is commonly associated with a certain kind of responsiveness “inside” human beings, a kind of human “inwardness.” Religion cannot simply be an external form but has to find some kind of personal “resonance” among people today: “the heart (the heart-and-mind) might be described as the great ‘resonance chamber’ constantly open or attuned to new religious of mystical experiences.”[31] Dallmayr is critical of the form of democracy currently found in the Western countries, which is characterized as liberal, laissez-faire, or minimalist, because the primary emphasis is on the liberty of individuals or groups to pursue their particular self-interests, while the role of “the people” as a government is minimalized and solely characterized by competitive elections with “slim procedural formalities serving as fig leaves to cover prevailing modes of domination.”[32] He applies the ideas of dialogue to the conception of democratic politics as relational praxis, guided by ethical principles and “love of equality.” He challenges democracy that emphasizes the pursuit of individual or collective self-interest, insisting that more ethical conceptions are possible, that different societies should nurture democracy with their own cultural resources, and that a world has to promote “a fair relationality or qualitative equality between citizen, but also between West and non-West.”[33] He adopts Derrida's conceptualization of “democracy to come” and further develops his own version of it, which is characterized as relational, enabling potentiality, ethical, and apophatic.

He views democracy as a “promise,” meaning that it is not presently an actuality, but it latently exists as a possibility or potentiality, the realization of which requires a process of striving, ethical cultivation, and self-transformation.

[34] Accordingly, Dallmayr presents a vision of democracy as popular self-rule in which civic education, ethical cultivation, and self-transformation make possible a nondomineering political agency.

He develops his conception of cosmopolis in dialogue with the ideas of such theorists of cosmopolitanism as Karl-Otto Apel, Daniele Archibugi, Seyla Benhabib, Richard A. Falk, Raúl Fornet-Betancourt, Habermas, David Held, James Ingram, Martha Nussbaum, and Walter Mignolo, among others.