The attitude of Vietnamese feudal intellectual class towards scientific and technological western knowledge from the 17th century to the first half of the 19th century

Abstract

During the period from the 17th century to the first half of the 19th century, Vietnam and Western countries exchanged knowledge and interacted with each other in many different fields, which is considered the first Western and Oriental cultural exchanges by scholars. These cultural exchanges with Western intellectuals facilitated easy entry of scientific and technological Western knowledge into Vietnam. In fact, Vietnamese feudal intellectual class gained easy access to scientific and technological Western knowledge. What were the attitude and actions of Vietnamese feudal intellectual class towards scientific and technological Western knowledge? What did the consequences result from their perceptions and actions towards scientific and technological Western knowledge? Through the answers to these questions, by historical and logical methods and the method of collecting, comparing the writings of the Vietnamese feudal intellectual class on Western, the article contributes another perspective to learn about the attitudes of the Vietnamese scholar class towards the Western science and technology. Therefore, finding out about this point will help us understand and clarify many issues in a more evident way, including the question why Vietnam couldn’t acculturate and gain ownership of Western knowledge in a successive way in order to develop and protect the country, thus, suffering from severe consequences.