Axel Honneth (Essen, 1949) is a German philosopher and sociologist. He is one of the most prominent figures of Critical Theory and scholars place him in the so-called third generation of the Frankfurt School, the “mythical” school of social research that in the 1930s was led by Max Horkheimer. In fact, between 2001 and 2018 he was director of the Institut für Sozialforschung (Institute for Social Research, Frankfurt am Main). Between 2007 and 2017 he was president of the Internationale Hegel-Vereignigung.

He is Professor of Social Philosophy at the Goethe Universität Frankfurt and since 2011 also Jack C. Weinstein Professor of Humanities in the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University. In 2015 he was awarded the Erns Bloch Prize and in 2016 the Bruno Kreisky Prize for his book The Idea of Socialism.

Honneth’s interests in social philosophy are manifold, but throughout his work he has mainly worked on the thematic of power relations and the problem of social recognition and respect. Among his remarkable work, we could highlight The Critique of Power: Reflective Stages in a Critical Social Theory (2009), Redistribution or Recognition?: A Political–Philosophical Exchange (2006; with N. Fraser), Recognition and contempt. On the Normative Grounding of a Social Theory (2010), The Contempt Society (2011), The Right of Freedom. Outline of a Democratic Ethicality (2014), Pathologies of Freedom (2016), The Working Sovereign: Labour and Democratic Citizenship (2024).