Hönigswald studied medicine and philosophy under Alois Riehl and Alexius von Meinong and from 1916 was professor of philosophy, psychology and pedagogy in Breslau (now Wrocław). There he supervised Norbert Elias's doctorate up to its conclusion in 1924. From 1930 he was a professor at Munich. The emphasis of his work lay on the theory of cognition from the point of view of validation and the philosophy of language. Beyond that, Hönigswald tried to develop a method of teaching that would be applicable to the natural sciences and the humanities equally. He also dealt with questions of the psychology of thought and of pedagogy.
Zeidler, Kurt Walter, Kritische Dialektik und Transzendentalontologie. Der Ausgang des Neukantianismus und die post-neukantianische Systematik R. Hönigswalds, W. Cramers, B. Bauchs, H. Wagners, R. Reinigers und E. Heintels (Bonn 1995).
