Plato

Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher of Classical Athens, living around the fifth and fourth centuries BC, and is widely regarded as a foundational thinker of the Western philosophical tradition. In literary terms he is the innovator of the written philosophical dialogue, a form that joins argument, drama and characterization in conversations usually led by his teacher Socrates. He founded the Academy in Athens, a school where the theories later gathered under the name Platonism were taught, and his best known contribution is the Theory of Forms, an attempt to solve the problem of universals. His complete works are believed to have survived, which is rare for a writer of his age, and they have been read and studied ever since.