Plato and the invention of philosophy
On this account, Plato was unusually self-conscious about philosophy’s scope and ambitions and transformed the intellectual currents he grappled with. That is why the subject—understood as rigorous, systematic inquiry into ethical, political, metaphysical, and epistemological issues, armed with a distinctive method—can be called his invention. The distinction is between doing philosophy and defining what the activity is supposed to be.
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The excerpt ties Plato’s importance to how he defined philosophy’s scope and method.
Pushback
It also says he grappled with existing intellectual currents, so “invention” cannot mean creation from nothing.
Reply
Exactly: here, “invention” names a transformation of those currents into a rigorous, systematic discipline.