Synthesis of knowledge as the value of science

The article seeks to answer whether it is legitimate to assert that «synthesis of knowledge» is the value of science. The identification of the value content of the process and result of synthesis of new knowledge determines the actual development of human civilization. However, there is a reasonable assumption that the explanation of the nature of values goes beyond the methodological possibilities of modern science since value covers the area of both the known and the unknown, which limits the possibility of constructing a sufficiently complete model of the development of humanity within the framework of the worldview of its life form. The article explores the possibilities of axiological constructivism for constructing logical and semiotic structures describing synthesis of knowledge and making it possible to objectify its value bases. The context of the reasoning is given by the decomposition of the basic statement that synthesis of knowledge is the value of science. The article shows the process of transformation of the understanding of value in various axiological approaches (axiological normativism, subjectivism, normativism). The ontological, epistemological, and logical foundations of the development of the theory of values are considered. The study substantiates the need to rethink the logical-semiotic approach to reading cultural texts as a type of synthetic knowledge, up to the necessary reconstruction of iconic forms and semiotic structures, while taking into account the value aspects of meaning- and text-generation. The research is based on the methodology of synergetics of complexity, the model-theoretic approach is used to describe the nature of value, the method of ontosemiotic modeling - to provide understanding of the value-driven boundaries of cognition. The introduction of the element «feeling» into the structure of the semiotic construction - a modal sign, allows us to identify the boundaries of extra-textual and extra-linguistic areas of scientific knowledge. To do this, the text model has been expanded to the sphere of the dynamic subject’s activity, which is set in the form of a three-level cultural text (pre-linguistic, linguistic, and post-linguistic levels). The modal sign forms a space of semiosis and text generation, based on the «idea» of communication and the activity of the subject of cognition. The idea, as a generative element of the text, has a personality-colored character, can be represented as a unit of «implicit knowledge» according to M. Polani. The article shows that, unlike solvable problems, unsolvable problems that are significant for the subject affect the value domain of knowledge construction, activating archetypal manifestations, unconscious, mythological thinking and attitudes. Embodied, value-based thinking introduces non-rational relationships into the resulting constructs, ensuring its coherence through personal knowledge.