per se

1. 1
   in itselfadverb

   In itself and by its very nature, without being determined by or involving any outside factors.

   Money per se does not make people happy; what matters is how they spend it.

   The drug per se is harmless, but it can react badly with alcohol.

   Similarintrinsically, inherently

   Note

   Latin per sē, "by itself", is still the whole meaning, and in English the phrase follows the word it qualifies: the alcohol per se, money per se. That position is how it isolates one factor from the rest, as when a hangover is blamed on impurities in the drink and not on the alcohol per se. Shakespeare uses it in Troilus and Cressida: "a very man per se".

2. 2
   strictly speakingadverbnonstandard

   In the strict or literal sense of a name or description; exactly as the label would lead one to expect.

   The job isn't management per se, but you'd be running the team day to day.

   She wasn't upset per se, just quieter than usual all evening.

   Similarexactly, truly

   Note

   Speakers use this looser per se to hedge a label, chiefly after not: it's not a museum per se, but… In talk it can even trail behind as an afterthought: I'm not a photographer. Per se. Because the use is nonstandard, careful writers who keep to the in-itself meaning avoid it in formal prose, where strictly speaking or exactly does the same job.

3. 3
   by law aloneadverb

   By the terms of a statute itself, leaving the judge no discretion to consider other factors that could rebut the judgment.

   Under the statute, possession of the device is unlawful per se, whatever the owner intended.

   Because the agreement was illegal per se, the court refused to hear evidence that it helped consumers.

   Note

   In legal writing the phrase can stand after its adjective, as in illegal per se, or before it, as in per se illegal. Either way the act is condemned on its face, and the defendant's reasons do not enter into it. Drunk-driving law has even made the phrase a name of its own: administrative per se, for the procedures some states adopted.

4. 4
   fixed legal ruleadjective

   Applying automatically under a statute, without leaving the judge discretion to weigh additional factors that could rebut the judgment.

   The legislature passed a per se law that sets a fixed blood alcohol limit for drivers.

   Under the per se rule, the price-fixing scheme was condemned without any inquiry into its effects.

   Note

   A per se drunk-driving law makes a blood alcohol level over the limit an offense in itself, with no need to prove impaired driving, which is why Denmark hesitated before adopting one and preferred to leave more discretion to its judges. Antitrust has its own per se rule: price-fixing is condemned outright, without the case-by-case weighing of the rule of reason.

5. 5
   adverb

   Of itself, as the principle of its own determination and positing itself, rather than through something else.

   On this view, only a necessary being exists per se, while everything else exists through another.

   For Spinoza, substance is conceived per se, whereas its modes are conceived only through it.

   Note

   Scholastic philosophy pairs it with per accidens: what belongs to a thing per se belongs to it because of what it is, while what belongs per accidens merely happens to be true of it. Jacques Maritain's Peter is per se alive and endowed with intellect, but only per accidens a sufferer from influenza. Whatever does not apply per se is, in this vocabulary, an accident.

6. 6
   adjective

   Positing itself and being the principle of its own determination, rather than depending on something else.

   Medieval theologians held that God has per se existence, owing his being to no other cause.

   For Fichte, the ego is a per se activity, positing itself rather than being posited by another.

   Note

   The adjective stands before its noun, a per se cause, a per se series, and it belongs to writing on Aristotle and Aquinas. In a per se series each effect depends on its cause for its very action, and that dependence grounds the argument that such a series cannot be infinite: without a first cause, nothing further down the chain could act at all.

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