rT ZaiHE QUESTION of the relationship of the hermeneutics of texts and the hermeneutics 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 to 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 to this special one. Within its own tradition, "hermeneutics" is almost exclusively identified with text interpretation, so that the question of the relationship of the hermeneutics of texts and that of actions appears from the start in the light of a false anticipation. The hermeneutics of actions appears possible only insofar as action is at least linked to a verbal manifestation, i.e., either verbally presented with respect to 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 hermeneutics of actions, namely, biography and autobiography, that has repeatedly served as a paradigm for hermeneutic practice ever since Dilthey. Thus the verdict seems to be spoken about the possibility of a hermeneutics of actions and hence too the verdict about the relationship of the hermeneutics of actions to text hermeneutics. Indeed, actions cannot be interpreted so long as they neither represent themselves in some fashion nor can be preserved and passed