Plato's teacher was a philosopher.
Plato . Along with his teacher , Socrates , and his most famous student , Aristotle , Plato laid the very foundations of Western philosophy and science . Few other authors in the history of Western philosophy approximate him in depth and range : perhaps only Aristotle ( who studied with him ) , Aquinas and Kant would be generally agreed to be of the same rank . '' Socrates ( [ ˈsɒkrətiːz ] Σωκράτης [ - grcsɔːkrátɛːs ] , Sōkrátēs ; 470/469 -- 399 BC ) was a classical Greek ( Athenian ) philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy .