 Brito also contributes to the famous medieval debate about whether there is a fundamental difference between a thing’s essence and its being (essentia et esse). In his reply to the question whether being belongs to the essence of things, Brito, like Siger of Brabant before him, takes issue with Aquinas’ position, according to which being would be something added to the essence of a thing, though not as an accident. Aquinas’ position posits an odd constituent of things, which is neither essential nor accidental, but, as Brito calls it, “fictional” (figmentum) (Ebbesen 2001: 476).