With the well-known critique of “sociological deficit”, Honneth pointed out Horkheimer's inability to carry out the main program of critical theory, namely, to link social philosophy with an analysis of society that was also based on empirical social research. However, because he distanced himself from the paradigm of “struggle” and developed a theory more concerned with the “normative reconstruction” of the institutions of our democratic life, Honneth would end up paying less attention to the relation with social research. We argue that Horkheimer's works of the decade of 1930 could indirectly help us to solve some methodological difficulties concerning a kind of “new sociological deficit” that critical theory would be facing today.