Abstract

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the notion and phenomenon of ‘open science’ as a way to solve the paradoxes of the today’s science as a mass occupation, especially in higher education. In the absence of inner motivations for scientific investigations among both undergraduates and professional researchers, science becomes a ‘closed’ system, which turns into a profanation of academic activities and is deprived of connection with society in general. The concept of “open science” that has appeared in the public discourse in 2010s is presented as a complex multilayer phenomenon. The analyzes reveals that this notion combines the emphasis on behavior, practices and procedures on the ‘lower‘ level with the urge to create technological platforms, services and tools for scientists to enable their wide international and interdisciplinary cooperation on the ‘middle’ level and with the theory and values that would enable science to re-institutionalize itself in today’s society as a public activity on the ‘higher’ level. The values here refer to the classical scientific ethos: openness of science acts as an explication of the mertonian principles of universalism and communism as fundamental values of science. It is argued that the development of the ‘open science’ concept corresponds to the democratization of science in general: a truly effective academic activity could be based only on the moral imperative of each human person as an autonomous and creative subject of judgment and of reconstruction of the ideal of scientific ethos. At the same time, ‘open science’ partly resembles today a popular slogan actively used in public discourse and in various declarations, but the task of filling it with meanings and translating it into practices is still unsolved.