Knowledge is a familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something, such as facts (descriptive knowledge), skills (procedural knowledge), or objects (acquaintance knowledge). By most accounts, knowledge can be acquired in many different ways and from many sources, including but not limited to perception, reason, memory, testimony, scientific inquiry, education, and practice. The philosophical study of knowledge is called epistemology.
The term "knowledge" can refer to a theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. It can be implicit (as with practical skill or expertise) or explicit (as with the theoretical understanding of a subject); formal or informal; systematic or particular. The philosopher Plato famously pointed out the need for a distinction between knowledge and true belief in the Theaetetus, leading many to attribute to him a definition of knowledge as "justified true belief". The difficulties with this definition raised by the Gettier problem have been the subject of extensive debate in epistemology for more than half a century.