.. is there not one true coin for which all things ought to exchange?- and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage, temperance or justice. And is not all true virtue the companion of wisdom, no matter what fears or pleasures or other similar goods or evils may or may not attend her? But the virtue which is made up of these goods, when they are severed from wisdom and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue only, nor is there any freedom or health or truth in her; but in the true exchange there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself, are a purgation of them.

Democracy was at last overthrown by a junta known as the Thirty Tyrants led by Plato's relative Critias who had been a friend of Socrates. On the one hand he drew a clear line between human ignorance and ideal knowledge; on the other Plato's Symposium (Diotima's Speech) and Republic (Allegory of the Cave) describe a method for ascending to wisdom. In 406 he was a member of the Boule and his tribe the Antiochis held the Prytany on the day the Generals of the Battle of Arginusae who abandoned the slain and the survivors of foundered ships to pursue the defeated Spartan navy were discussed.

It is Plato's Socrates that also made important and lasting contributions to the fields of epistemology and logic and the influence of his ideas and approach remains strong in providing a foundation for much western philosophy that followed. 469 BC – 399 BC) was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Through his portrayal in Plato's dialogues Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics and it is this Platonic Socrates who also lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method or elenchus.