Soon after we can see, we are aware that we can also be seen. The eye of the other combines with our own eye to make it fully credible that we are part of the visible world.

If we accept that we can see that hill over there, we propose that from that hill we can be seen. The reciprocal nature of vision is more fundamental than that of spoken dialogue. And, often dialogue is an attempt to visualise this – an attempt to explain how, either metaphorically or literally, ‘you see things’ and an attempt to discover how ‘he sees things’.