Claim: Plato was a philosopher.

Plato -LRB- -LSB- ˈpleɪtoʊ -RSB- Greek : Πλάτων Plátōn , -LSB- plá.tɔːn -RSB- in Classical Attic ; 428/427 or 424/423 -- 348/347 BCE -RRB- was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens , the first institution of higher learning in the Western world . He is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy , especially the Western tradition . Unlike nearly all of his philosophical contemporaries , Plato 's entire work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years .   Along with his teacher , Socrates , and his most famous student , Aristotle , Plato laid the very foundations of Western philosophy and science . Alfred North Whitehead once noted : `` the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato . '' In addition to being a foundational figure for Western science , philosophy , and mathematics , Plato has also often been cited as one of the founders of Western religion and spirituality . Plato 's influence on Christianity is often thought to be mediated by his major influence on Saint Augustine of Hippo , one of the most important philosophers and theologians in the foundation of the Western thought . In the 19th century the philosopher Nietzsche criticized Christianity by saying it 's `` Platonism for the people '' . Numenius of Apamea viewed this differently , he called Plato the Hellenic Moses . This would justify the superiority of Christianity over Hellenism because Moses predates Plato - thus the original source of this wisdom is the root of Christianity and not Hellenistic culture .   Plato was the innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy . Plato appears to have been the founder of Western political philosophy , with his Republic , and Laws among other dialogues , providing some of the earliest extant treatments of political questions from a philosophical perspective . Plato 's own most decisive philosophical influences are usually thought to have been Socrates , Parmenides , Heraclitus and Pythagoras , although few of his predecessors ' works remain extant and much of what we know about these figures today derives from Plato himself .   The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes Plato as '' ... one of the most dazzling writers in the Western literary tradition and one of the most penetrating , wide-ranging , and influential authors in the history of philosophy . ... He was not the first thinker or writer to whom the word `` philosopher '' should be applied . But he was so self-conscious about how philosophy should be conceived , and what its scope and ambitions properly are , and he so transformed the intellectual currents with which he grappled , that the subject of philosophy , as it is often conceived -- a rigorous and systematic examination of ethical , political , metaphysical , and epistemological issues , armed with a distinctive method -- can be called his invention . Few other authors in the history of Western philosophy approximate him in depth and range : perhaps only Aristotle -LRB- who studied with him -RRB- , Aquinas and Kant would be generally agreed to be of the same rank . ''