PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS AS A FACTOR OF INSTITUTIONAL REFORM

Abstract

The article examines the task of rethinking the well-known formula “social consciousness reflects social existence.” The desire to exclude consciousness from the sphere of being is shown to be erroneous; the position according to which people’s ignorance of the laws of the activities they carry out provides grounds for excluding their consciousness from the sphere of being is critically examined. The article advances the idea that social reality always refers to a specific collective subject and is determined by its practical-spiritual activity and is the subject of reflection. The existence of a subject can be determined by the degree of development of the ability to reflect inherent in his consciousness