  This attempt to bring together the three ways of understanding genera (and species) terms has been labeled as “conceptual” or “moderate realism” (Benakis 1982), but it has also been presented as a nominalist or conceptualist position (Joannou 1954; Lloyd 1990). In view of this disagreement, it may be interesting to take a closer look at the position the Byzantines advocated and to compare it with that propounded by the Neoplatonist commentators. In particular, it is important to focus on John Italos’ views on genera, since he repeatedly discusses them at great length in his Quaestiones quodlibetales and there seems to be no earlier indications of any more vivid or systematic interest in this issue.