Language in the wild: non-ideal philosophy of language as a bottom-up approach

Abstract This paper contributes to the emerging debate on ideal and non-ideal philosophy of language. After distinguishing between a critical and a constructive project within non-ideal philosophy of language, I first refine the critical project by working out two problems of an ideal philosophy of language: the problem of limited sight and the problem of limited reach. In response to these problems, and as part of the constructive project, I develop a novel positive account of non-ideal philosophy of language. I argue that non-ideal philosophy of language should be construed as a bottom-up approach to investigating linguistic phenomena, where working bottom-up means starting to theorise from a standpoint within our practical, social, and linguistic reality. After presenting my view, I contrast it with de-idealisation approaches and defend it against the objection that we do not need non-ideal philosophy of language.