BLAPTO is ‘harm’. The accent of this word is on moral damage in order to designate things that hurt a ‘life in tune with virtue‘.

In the French language, an echo of this term is recognizable in <blesser>. This verb means ‘to hit’, ‘to injure’, ‘to cause harm’, ‘to wound’, ‘to hurt’. Voltaire in his Questions sur l’Encyclopédie traces back the origin of the verb to a Greek colony in Marseille. For us, nowadays, it is not difficult to list many things and occurrences suitable to hinder a virtuous philosophical life: temptations and distractions are everywhere.

<Blapto> is ‘harm’. A ‘moral harm’, as an example, is an act of indulgence in unnecessary pleasures. Also a ‘moral harm’ might be behaving according to one of the several vile and filthy feelings of us human beings. For instance: resentment, envy, jealousy and many others. When numerous are the risks to cave in to seductive temptations, self-discipline is a good protection. In case of the most common vices, soul-searching is the starting point to transform oneself.

The integral transformation of the human subject is one of the main issues of <epimeleia heautou> (the <care of self> philosophy). Self-examination is the beginning of a long process which leads to purification. In other words, the goal of the philosophical practices is a structural, anthropological transformation. The individual becomes so strong as to resist to common temptations. Moreover, he abandons vices, bad feelings and other impurities that are so ordinary. In order to accomplish such a constitutive conversion, it is important to be attentive and careful.