(It might be a quirk of how I learned English.) For me, “I hear you” is an acknowledgement of listening, possibly negotiating, and “I see...”—of the other person already thinking they have heard all they need to, possibly a dismissal. Of course, intonation matters too, and maybe it so outweighs the actual words that the above doesn’t matter, but I mostly intake English as written.
Can you give an example when “I hear you “as an idiom works but “I see what you’re saying” doesn’t?
Also, nobody says ‘You hear,...’ instead of ‘You see,...’
(It might be a quirk of how I learned English.) For me, “I hear you” is an acknowledgement of listening, possibly negotiating, and “I see...”—of the other person already thinking they have heard all they need to, possibly a dismissal. Of course, intonation matters too, and maybe it so outweighs the actual words that the above doesn’t matter, but I mostly intake English as written.