rT ZaiHE QUESTION of the relationship of the of texts and the of actions is primarily a question of what both have in common. What common output, what common structure, fits the interpretation of texts and the interpretation (i.e., the systematic understanding) of actions, either those of others or my own? The question seems burdened from the start with a special difficulty. This difficulty results from the fact that, in light of the extreme variability of texts, the express or tacit difference of their intentions, their form of expression, etc., it is not at all easy say in general what it means to interpret a text. What is there in common between the interpretation of a poetic art object and that of a chapter from the Critique of Pure Reason? Even more, a general difficulty is added this special one. Within its own tradition, hermeneutics is almost exclusively identified with text interpretation, so that the question of the relationship of the of texts and that of actions appears from the start in the light of a false anticipation. The of actions appears possible only insofar as action is at least linked a verbal manifestation, i.e., either verbally presented with respect intention, choice of means, accompanying circumstances, etc., or else entirely subsumed in a verbal manifestation. Otherwise, the maxim holds that while all speech is action, not all action is verbally manifested. How should action be interpreted when it is not presented through language? That speech is a possible paradigm for action has as little force against this as that there is a type of of actions, namely, biography and autobiography, that has repeatedly served as a paradigm for hermeneutic practice ever since Dilthey. Thus the verdict seems be spoken about the possibility of a of actions and hence too the verdict about the relationship of the of actions text hermeneutics. Indeed, actions cannot be interpreted so long as they neither represent themselves in some fashion nor can be preserved and passed