This paper focuses on the general and specific knowledge concerning Nursing - teaching and practice in the art of caring, with implications to the relevant aspects of reality investigation and the search for answer to scientific construction. Objective: To clarify the definitions concerned to Nursing: theory, knowledge itself and research. Methodology discursive with philosophical approach to propositions and arguments on theoretical and practical aspects of human knowledge, the consciousness (subjectivity) and reality (object of study), considering the thought and the scientific knowledge. In the analysis of those aspects, some epistemological concepts allow the discussion of questions on professional knowledge and science, related to the practice of teaching and assistance in nursing. The problem of the specific and general knowledge is related not only to the conceptual difficulties and the acquisition of knowledge itself, but also to the experience of acquiring the professional abilities and a critical consciousness facing the challenges of the complete practice of nursing teaching, research and assistance, with consequences to the creation of a professional profile in the Nursing area.
Nursing; Knowledge; Practice Professional; Education, Nursing