Harmonia et rhuthmos dans Platon, Lois II et Aristote, Poétique. Une réplique à Gregory Scott

Abstract On the basis of book two in Plato’s Laws , Gregory Scott argues that in Aristotle’s Poetics , ἁρµονία and ῥυθµός never (or almost never) designate abstract or temporal notions, but rather concrete notions, namely music and dance (or orderly bodily movement), respectively. Although his thesis is stimulating and some of his arguments are relevant, in this article I instead offer a different thesis. I show that, in these two ancient works, ἁρµονία refers rather to intonation, that is to say the production of properly musical sounds, whether vocal or instrumental, and ῥυθµός to the order in a change. Crucially, this change may be of the bodily figure, σχῆµα , that is to say attitude, posture or gesture, or of pitch, vocal or instrumental, that is to say the melody.