The Paradox of Symbolization

From The Metastases of Enjoyment (London: Verso), p. 47:

When I say 'this is an elephant', however, I thereby confer upon an object its symbolic identity; I add to the bundle of real properties a symbolic unifying feature that changes this bundle into One, a self-identical object.  The paradox of symbolization resides in the fact that the object is constituted as One through a feature that is radically external to the object itself, to its reality; through a name that bears no resemblance to the object.