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Frederick D. "Fritz" Wilhelmsen (18 May 1923 — 21 May 1996) was an American Catholic philosopher known for his explication and advancement of the Thomistic tradition. He also was a political commentator, assessing American politics and society from a traditionalist perspective, and a political thinker, addressing what he perceived to be the failings of secular liberal democracy. He principally was a professor at the University of Dallas from 1965 to his death in 1996. He also taught at the University of Santa Clara, the Al-Hikma University in Baghdad, the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, and lectured and taught classes at many other universities. His Spanish students called him "Don Federico" while his American students called him "Fritz."
A basic flaw in contemporary American educational philosophy as much as it is under the influence of the late John Dewey, is it s failure to grasp the essentially artistic character of teaching. Due to an inflated opinion of "science" and all things supposedly "scientific," educators have been loathe to admit that teaching is an art, not a science. The art of teaching is a mingling of the liberal and the dramatic arts. Above and beyond the subject matter, the teacher actually needs but two assets: (a) a grasp of the liberal arts of grammar, rhetoric,and logic; (b) a mastery of the dramatic art of presentation." — pg 126 footnote 1.
Philosophers in the scholastic tradition have usually defined intellectual certitude as a proposition in which we have no reasonable 'fear' of the opposite proposition turning out to be the truth. But this "fear" of which the medieval scholastics spoke does not convey their teaching to a mind trained in the proper formalities of the English language. A lack of fear, in this context, means that we cannot judge the opposite to be possible and that we are fully conscious of the reasons why we cannot. We have no reason permitting us to withhold assent to the proposition at hand. "lack of fear, " in this context, is something intellectual; it is not really a "lack of fear," in the emotional sense at all, and "fear" —in English - connotes the emotional. A man can possess intellectual certitude about a proposition and still fail to possess subjective or emotional certitude. He can emotionally fear the opposite, even though he cannot think the opposite to be a possibility. A man ca be absolutely certain that a God exists and still feel His absence. pg 172