Zhang Zai · Philosophy

The Four Missions: Scholarship as Cosmic Vocation

Zhang Zai’s four-line credo - to establish the mind for Heaven and Earth, to secure life for the people, to continue the interrupted learning of past sages, and to open peace for ten thousand generations - which recast the scholar’s work as a cosmic vocation and made sagehood a calling open to all.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned Zhang Zai’s four-line mission for the scholar - to establish the mind for Heaven and Earth, to secure the life-destiny of the people, to continue the interrupted learning of past sages, and to open peace for ten thousand generations - and how it frames learning as service to the cosmos rather than se…

Leads to The Doctrine of the Mean.

epoché — a humanities education that remembers you.