Abstract: The chapter proposes the view that knowing is a mental state. It is a factive mental state, in the sense that only truths are known; by contrast, believing is a non-factive mental state, because both truths and falsehoods are believed. Knowledge is the most general factive mental state, of which perception and memory are sub-species. Knowledge cannot be given an analysis as a combination of belief, truth, and other factors. Rather, belief is to be understood in terms of knowledge in a way similar to what are known as disjunctive accounts of perception; to believe something is, roughly, to act as though one knew it; a successful belief is knowledge.

Keywords: analysis, belief, factive, Knowledge, memory, mental state, perception, truth,