The Royal Institute of Philosophy Cardiff Annual Lecture 2026

This lecture delineates the distinction between the two most central modalities of love, falling in love and being in love. It first contends that these modalities differ in both their temporality and volitional character. Whereas falling in love is an involuntary event that we undergo passively and abruptly, being in love entails a volitional commitment which binds us to the beloved unconditionally across all situations. Second, the lecture demonstrates that despite this fundamental divergence, both modalities of love are profoundly characterized by the emotion of wonder: falling in love occurs only when we are compelled to abandon our preconceptions, and being in love continuously demands their repeated relinquishment.

Sara Heinämaa is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä and docent of theoretical philosophy at the University of Helsinki. She served as Academy Professor of the Academy of Finland in 2017–2022 and is currently Member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. She specializes in phenomenology, existentialism, philosophy of mind, and history of philosophy. Heinämaa is co-author of Birth, Death, and Femininity (2010) and author of Toward a Phenomenology of Sexual Difference (2003), and has edited several research volumes, including Contemporary Phenomenologies of Normativity (2022),  Phenomenology and the Transcendental (2014), and Consciousness (2007).

Location

Online

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