Bruno Latour is the philosopher behind the title of this wiki. On this wiki we Idea Mine a range of disciplines around the notion that science, law, media and politics can be remixed in new and potentially fruitful ways.
# What is a Thing?
A thing is an abstract term. In common parlance, it is a general term we use to refer to an object. The modern meaning takes it's lead from the referential theory of meaning - Wikipedia 
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Interestingly however the original sense of the word "thing" is that of a gathering or political assembly. A Thingstead was an early law court. The meaning of a "thing" in this sense is a political definition, and it would seem by looking at the history of legal terminology, we can see how this softer deliberative meaning, became codified.
# Thing as Assembly
Witgenstein famously argued against referentialism, famously saying that:
> the meaning of a word is its use - stanford.edu .
# In Law
It is important to understand the involvment of law, in the creation of the importance - that is value - of a thing. It is this process which as is the case with money, a descriptive term becomes performative.
See: > a Chose in Action is a Common Law legal definition derived form the French meaning Thing in Action.
In the Empire of Things we begin to see a more detailed historical unwinding of the process.