In this tightly written but clear exposition of some of Lacan's views on symbolism, the author attempts to show the origins of the Lacanian notion of symbolism in Saussure and in Roman Jakobson. He then discusses Lacan's critique of Ernest Jones's naïve, empiricist view of the symbol, in which Jones does not provide a theory of the possibility of symbolism. Gibeault's article makes clear the arguments which led Lacan to the algorithmic view of symbols, and the relation between the Lacanian signifier and Freud's concept of thing representation. Gibeault refers to papers from the meetings of the International in 1977, in particular to the papers of Rosolato and Hanna Segal, and to the subsequent continuation of that discussion in papers of Meissner, of Van Dam, and of Blum, which appeared in 1978.