Genialism™
Genialism™ is a contemporary philosophical teaching that regards genius as an inherent human potential expressed through self-knowledge, responsible authorship, and meaningful contribution.
A person can achieve goals successfully without ever asking whether those goals express what they genuinely want or value. Genialism addresses this gap between an outwardly successful life and a direction recognised as one’s own. AI makes the question more pressing, but the teaching’s concern with human genius and self-realisation is broader than technology.
The central idea
According to Genialism, every person is born unique and carries a potential for genius. Its expression can develop through the ways a person learns, chooses, acts, and contributes. It may be realised in science or art, in education or enterprise, and in relationships, care, and everyday life.
During socialisation, external expectations and inherited ideas about the “right” way to live can weaken a person’s connection to their own desires, values, and inner calling. The teaching understands this not as the disappearance of the potential, but as a loss of access to it.
Inner listening and a supportive environment can help a person reconnect with this potential and develop it at any age, regardless of education, social position, or income.
Inquire Within
Inquire Within is the practice of inner listening across intellectual, emotional, intuitive or heart-centred, and bodily experience. It concerns recognising what matters before turning that recognition into a commitment; the dedicated article explains these dimensions and their limits.
In the age of AI
The teaching’s contemporary research asks how human authorship can be preserved as AI participates in framing problems, proposing goals, and planning action. Assistance can expand human possibilities while keeping people involved in shaping the ends they pursue.
The distinction between Augmented Agency and Derivative Agency concerns the quality of that involvement. It asks whether collaboration develops the person’s ability to think, judge, and act, or leaves them increasingly dependent on directions adopted without examination.
Origins & development
The name Genialism was introduced in 2020. Its founder, Mykola Latansky, is a philosopher of human genius who has worked on human genius, self-realisation, and inner listening since 2007. His educational work has involved participants from more than 80 countries. Genius Inside You (2023) presents an early account of the teaching’s ideas.
For the educational work and its history, see Genialism™ Academy.
Later philosophical texts develop the concepts of inner knowledge, exceptional agency, and Original Human Agency. Research prepared in 2026 examines the formation of ends under AI mediation and meaningful human–AI collaboration. These texts express an evolving philosophical position.
Sources & notes
These sources document the author’s position. Published books, unpublished manuscripts, academic essays and submitted proposals have different statuses, identified below. Submission is not acceptance; institutional names do not imply endorsement or peer review of the teaching.
Sources are listed by year, newest first; within each year, alphabetically by title. Dates of forthcoming works remain provisional.
- Exceptional Agency as Existential Possibility. Mykola Latansky, 2026. From Inner Self-Knowledge to World-Opening Action. Philosophical essay written as part of the Certificate of Higher Education in Philosophy, University of Oxford.
- Human Genius Beyond Digital Animism and Digital Mechanism. Mykola Latansky, 2026. A Framework for Original Agency in Human–AI Collaboration. Extended abstract submitted to Digital Humanism — 2nd International Interdisciplinary Research Conference, Munich, 10–12 March 2027.
- Human Genius in the Age of Agentic AI. Mykola Latansky, 2026. The Case for Original Human Agency. Conference abstract submitted to the International Artificial Intelligence Summer School (IAISS), 2026.
- Human Genius in the Age of AI. Mykola Latansky, 2026. Forthcoming book; expected autumn 2026.
- Original Human Agency in the Age of AI. Mykola Latansky, 2026. Philosophical essay written as part of the Certificate of Higher Education in Philosophy, University of Oxford.
- Original Human Agency under AI Mediation. Mykola Latansky, 31 August 2026. Substantive Authorship and the Formation of Ends. Doctoral research proposal submitted to the Technical University of Munich (TUM).
- Inquire Within: The Epistemology of Inner Knowledge. Mykola Latansky, 2025. Philosophical essay written as part of the Certificate of Higher Education in Philosophy, University of Oxford.
- Genius Inside You. Mykola Latansky, 2023. An early introduction to Genialism. Used here for the teaching’s origins and its account of inner listening.
- Solving the World’s Greatest Challenge of Self-Realisation Through Unlocking People’s Inborn Genius. Mykola Latansky, 2023. Oxford Philosophical Society Annual Review, pp. 50–54.