I can see the stairs down which Smerdyakov tumbles. Dostoevsky gives us a certain description. As a result, I know exactly what this staircase looks like. I know where it starts, how it gets darker and then turns to the left. All this is clear to me in the most concrete way and yet I also know that no one else ‘sees’ the staircase the way I do. But anyone who is receptive to this masterly narrative will ‘see’ the staircase in a most specific way and be convinced that he sees it as it really is.

— Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays, 1986