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Philosophy fails in this it fails in all.

The oldest name for the knowledge in question was simply Wisdom and, in
some ways, in spite of its apparent arrogance this is the best name for
what is sought--or missed. Yet from the beginning the name was felt not
sufficiently to distinguish what was meant from the high skill of the
cunning craftsman and the worldly wisdom of the man of affairs, the
statesman or soldier or trader. In the case of all these it was
difficult to disengage the knowledge involved from natural or trained
practical dexterity. What was desired and required was knowledge
distinguished but not divorced from practice and application--'pure
knowledge' as it was sometimes called; not divorced, I repeat, for it
was not conceived as without bearing upon the conduct of life, but still
distinguished, as furnishing light rather than profit. For good or evil
Philosophy began by considering what it sought and hoped to reach as
pre-eminently knowledge in some distinctive sense, and having so begun
it turned to reflect once more upon what it meant by so conceiving it
and to make this meaning more precise and clear. So it came to present
to itself as its aim or goal a special kind or degree of knowledge, to
be inspired and guided by the hope of that. Practical as in many ways
was the concern of ancient philosophy--its whole bent was towards the
bettering of human life--it sought to achieve this by the extension and
deepening of knowledge, and not either through the cultivation or
refinement of emotion or the organization of practical, civil or social
or philanthropic activities. It laboured--and laboured not in vain--to
further the increase of knowledge by defining to itself in advance the
kind or degree of knowledge which would accomplish the ultimate aim of
its endeavour or subserve its accomplishment. Hence we must learn to
view with a sympathetic eye its repeated essays to give precision and
detail to the conception or ideal of knowledge.

In form the answer rendered to its request to itself for a definition,
was determined by the principle that the knowledge which was sought and
alone, if found, could satisfy, was knowledge of the real, or as it was
at first more simply expressed, of what is, or what really and veritably
is. Refusing the name of knowledge except to what had this as its
object, men turned to consider the nature of the object which stood or
could stand in this relation. With this they contrast