ADV 本身;本质上Per se means 'by itself' or 'in itself', and is used when you are talking about the qualities of one thing considered on its own, rather than in connection with other things. 本身;本质上
The authors' argument is not with the free market per se but with the western society in which it works.
作者的论点与自由市场本身无关,而是与自由市场所处的西方社会有关。
Global warming per se is not really the problem; the catastrophic climate changes which might be caused by it are.