If a society encourages freedom of thought and expression, then, during the time when it does so, creativity will flo...
bobbyg0313April 24, 2021
Either or
I answered the question correctly, however, I started diagramming "freedom of thought and expression" by saying this: FOT and E ——->CWF
Not CWF——>Not FOT or E
The way i did it threw me off a bit but somehow managed to get the answer correct. When should i not use the and/or contrapositive?
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Happy to help! This is something that will come with practice and lots of reading!
In general, you use the and/or contrapositive where you are referring to two separate things. For example, "if the light is green or yellow, then you can pass through the intersection."
G OR Y --> PTI Not PTI --> Not G AND Not Y
We know that if the light is green, then we can pass through the intersection. We also know that if the light is yellow, then we can pass through the intersection. Therefore, if we cannot pass through the intersection, the light must not be green and it must not be yellow; it must be some other colour.
In this example, it is not clear if freedom of thought and freedom of expression are two different things.
It would make more sense to use the and/or contrapositive if the phrase read "if a society encourages freedom of thought and freedom of expression, then creativity will flourish." This suggests that the society must encourage BOTH freedom of thought and freedom of expression which are highlighted as two distinct freedoms. Therefore, we could conclude that, if creativity does not flourish, then the society must not have encouraged at least one of those freedoms.
I hope the above explanation helps, but also make sure you always look at the context and see what aspects of the stimulus the question is focused on. With practice, it should become clearer to you when you are meant to use the and/or contrapositive.
Please let us know if you have any further questions!
