Plato was a critical figure in the innovation of dialectic forms in philosophy.
Plato . He is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy , especially the Western tradition . Plato was the innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy . 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 .