Having returned to Freudian and Lacanian conceptions of the father and taken the opportunity to offer various facets involved in the overly general concept of the father function, the author considers the various agents of that function in present-day society and the reasons why he does not share the frequently encountered pessimism concerning the decline of the father or the father function. Finally, he develops the reasons that lead him to designate the entire function, said to be paternal by Lacan, a function of the "symboligène" (symbol-creative) third party. (Patrick De Neuter)