 The ontological status of rationes reales is unclear. Some scholars seem to interpret them in a reductionist manner (Pini 2005, pp. 74–75; Piron 2016, par. 7) but it has also been argued that they, or at least some of them, should be taken as modes, understood as an ontological category that is distinct from substances and accidents but equally real (Pasnau 2011, pp. 247–49). Either way, clearly they function as a theoretical tool which is unknown to Aristotelian metaphysics and which allows Olivi to develop rather nuanced positions in several metaphysical, epistemological and theological questions.