Plato
Plato was a classical Greek philosopher and student of Socrates who founded the Academy in Athens, one of the earliest institutions of higher learning in the Western world.
Plato's writings, mostly composed as dialogues featuring his teacher Socrates as the central character, cover an enormous range of topics including ethics, politics, metaphysics, and epistemology.
His most famous work, The Republic, explores the nature of justice and describes his vision of an ideal society governed by philosopher-kings, along with his influential theory of Forms, which argued that abstract ideas represent a higher reality than the physical world.
Around 387 BCE, Plato founded the Academy in Athens, where students, including Aristotle, studied philosophy, mathematics, and science for centuries after his death, making it one of history's most influential centers of learning.