To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils.

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.