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Acquaintance.
Knowledge [is] threefold.[1] For science is [also] called 'knowledge', as Plato says in the Phaedo; [i] for to know is this, 'to acquire knowledge of something, and not to have lost it'.[2] Or [ii] fuller acquaintance, whether without qualification or a more general [acquaintance] encompassing both of them, as Aristotle says in the Physics; since to know and to have a scientific understanding [are related] to all the sciences.[3] For by 'knowing' he means a full acquaintance, and by 'having a scientific knowledge' an accurate acquaintance [of something]. Or [iii] [the knowledge] which is said to be in common or in general in any acquaintance; the knowledge that [Aristotle] took in the Metaphysics.

Εἴδησις: ἡ γνῶσις. ὅτι ἡ εἴδησις τριττή. ἡ γὰρ ἐπιστήμη λέγεται εἴδησις, ὥς φησιν ὁ Πλάτων ἐν τῷ Φαίδωνι: τὸ γὰρ εἰδέναι τοῦτό ἐστι, τὸ λαβόντα του ἐπιστήμην ἔχειν καὶ μὴ ἀποβεβλῆσθαι. ἢ ἡ ὁλοσχερεστέρα γνῶσις, ἢ ἁπλῶς ἢ κοινοτέρα, καὶ τοῦτο ἑκάτερον περιέχουσα, ὥς φησιν Ἀριστοτέλης ἐν τοῖς Φυσικοῖς: ἐπειδὴ καὶ τὸ εἰδέναι καὶ τὸ ἐπίστασθαι περὶ πάσας τὰς ἐπιστήμας. διὰ μὲν γὰρ τοῦ εἰδέναι τὴν ὁλοσχερῆ γνῶσιν σημαίνει, διὰ δὲ τοῦ ἐπίστασθαι τὴν ἀκριβῆ. ἢ τὴν κοινῶς ἐπὶ πάσης γνώσεως λεγομένην: ἣν ἐν τοῖς Μετὰ τὰ φυσικὰ παρέλαβεν.

[1] This second and fuller gloss, introduced by ὅτι , derives from John Philoponus (in Aristotelis de anima 22.5-13 Hayduck).
[2] To be sure, Plato never uses the word εἴδησις , either in the Phaedo or in any other of his works. However, the last sentence is an almost literal quotation taken from Phaedo 75d8-10 (web address 1 below). The passage is part of the 'recollection argument' (Phaedo 74aff.; a full discussion on the issue of knowledge and recollection can be seen in Irwin, [1995], 132-143). Plato continues: 'Do we not call the losing of knowledge "forgetting"?' (Grube's translation).
[3] Or 'scientific disciplines' (ἐπιστῆμαι ). The Suda is paraphrasing the opening lines of Aristotle's Physics, 184a10-12: 'In any subject which has principles, causes, and elements, scientific knowledge and understanding stems from a grasp of them' (Waterfield's translation). The point seems to be this: a scientific knowledge (or 'to know' in the strict sense) implies having the principles, causes and elements of that we are accounting for. In other words, you know something strictly if and only if you have the principles or causal accounts that explain the thing at issue. For a very clear and detailed commentary on this passage, see Charlton (1992), ad locum.

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