If you translate it literally, "per" is closer to "for".
If you don't translate it literally, I'd vote for "in itself". "In itself" (viewed in its essential qualities; considered separately from other things[0]) has a different meaning than "by itself" (alone/unaided). And to me it's clear that "per se" pretty much universally means the former.
A less literal translation like "essentially" or "in essence" is deployed by master Latin translators like Robert Fagles. I've even seen "in a vacuum" which does a better job at communicating the original intent than a string of cryptic prepositions.
That's another valid translation for the same preposition.
And there are many definitions of English "for" as well. This would fit the one used in the phrase "if not for this, ..." In other words, for itself = by virtue of itself, through the existence of itself.
Also note in terms of Indo European roots, per is a cognate with English for.
Prepositions are some of the least translatable bits of language. For that matter, even without translation they tend to get slippery within a language, especially over time (one that springs to mind is the whole “quarter of” referring to a time which I first encountered some 50 years ago and still don’t know if it’s quarter to or quarter after).¹
⸻
1. Cue some dude to tell me in 3…2…1²
2. And this knowledge will promptly disappear from my brain five minutes later, sort of like the guy I knew in my 20s whose name was either Jack or Chad and to this date, I still am not sure, but I do know that every single time I called him by name, I got it wrong and it totally wasn’t on purpose even though he didn’t believe me.
kspacewalk2|1 year ago
If you don't translate it literally, I'd vote for "in itself". "In itself" (viewed in its essential qualities; considered separately from other things[0]) has a different meaning than "by itself" (alone/unaided). And to me it's clear that "per se" pretty much universally means the former.
[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=in+itself
grepLeigh|1 year ago
asveikau|1 year ago
And there are many definitions of English "for" as well. This would fit the one used in the phrase "if not for this, ..." In other words, for itself = by virtue of itself, through the existence of itself.
Also note in terms of Indo European roots, per is a cognate with English for.
dhosek|1 year ago
⸻
1. Cue some dude to tell me in 3…2…1²
2. And this knowledge will promptly disappear from my brain five minutes later, sort of like the guy I knew in my 20s whose name was either Jack or Chad and to this date, I still am not sure, but I do know that every single time I called him by name, I got it wrong and it totally wasn’t on purpose even though he didn’t believe me.