Volume 33, 2018
Philosophical Traditions in Asia and the Pacific
Trung Do Kien
Pages 7-10
Vietnamese Philosophy as a Way of Life and a Redefinition of the Role of Contemporary Philosophy
Vietnamese philosophy has formed based on the combination of the three philosophy schools – Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism – and native thoughts, constitutes a philosophical complex on the view of life, worldview and epistemology. The challenge is the existence of Vietnamese philosophy is not a rationally academic theory but a way of life. In this article, the author will analyze and explain the main idea in Vietnamese philosophy and the redefinition of the role of philosophy in a contemporary world: First, the universe is explained through our view of life rather than the inverse as well as our everyday lives are explained through what happens inside of us; Second, to understand a philosophy as a way of life puts the philosophy in a position to aid and explain global issues of the twenty-first century, it is to eliminate universal ontology and external disciplines.