The movement, development of Vietnamese philosophical thought in the first half of 19th century was necessary to build an orthodox ideology leading social spiritual life towards protecting and consolidating feudal state centralization dynasty highly. Confucianism was chosen and developed to meet this requirement. The paper analyzes major characteristics of Vietnam philosophical thought in the first half of 19th century elucidating its differences in this stage in comparison to other stages and recommends some issues for further study. | Vietnam Social Sciences, (171) - 2016 PHILOSOPHY – LAW – PSYCHOLOGY – SOCIOLOGY Characteristics of Vietnamese Philosophy Ideologies in the Early 19th Century Le Thi Lan * Abstract: The movement, development of Vietnamese philosophical thought in the first half of 19th century was necessary to build an orthodox ideology leading social spiritual life towards protecting and consolidating feudal state centralization dynasty highly. Confucianism was chosen and developed to meet this requirement. The paper analyzes major characteristics of Vietnam philosophical thought in the first half of 19th century elucidating its differences in this stage in comparison to other stages and recommends some issues for further study. Key words: Ideology; philosophy; Confucius; harmonization; nationalism. 1. Introduction In the first half of 19th century in East Asia including Vietnam, there were cultural conflicts between Asia and Europe, Confucian and Christian values, Confucian philosophies and Western theory and science. Before these events, each East Asian country had its own ideological life in various movements and trends depending on each nation’s own position. Vietnamese philosophical thought in the 19th century had its distinguishable characteristics compared with the previous period it had strong impact to Vietnam spiritual life in the 19th century and early 20th century. The author intends to have a closer look into these characteristics. 2. The historical context affecting Vietnam philosophical thought in the first half 19th century The Nguyen (Nguyễn) dynasty officially ruled Vietnam in 1802 and developed its unified governance over the whole territory. 26 The initial Nguyen kings had to solve several serious issues such as setting legitimacy of the dynasty, overcoming economic crisis, gaining people’s support, rebuilding moral value standards, etc. These major issues dominated Nguyen kings’ internal and foreign policy during 19th century, they strongly influenced .
