What is purpose and meaning of "Propositions" in PhD thesis?

Question

I found a weird and intuitively strange document that is submitted with the thesis. It is called

Propositions To accompanying a dissertation on the.....

and it is such a strange thing included, that maybe it is a cultural thing specific to Dutch academia? Its content is as follows:

To cycle up a steep hillside one needs to accumulate strength beforehand. This is a similar process to planning one’s work. Democracy is forbidden in science. Doing science is similar to the Chinese martial arts (Kungfu). Alongside learning and practice, both are capable of creating physiological or psychological disorder.

In the end, this proposition finishes with

The contention is that these propositions lend themselves to opposition and are defendable, and have been approved as such by promoter [promoter’s name] and co-promoter [co-promoter’s name].

for me, this is so strange and not understandable. Why would this be submitted with the thesis? Please, can someone explain me the meaning?

Answer 1

This is indeed related to customs in Dutch academia. Precise practice and regulations vary between universities, but usually there is the opportunity (or even duty) to provide this list of propositions, usually distributed as an inserted leaflet with the thesis. The propositions themselves vary from serious scientific statements (typically related to the content of the thesis), to more "humorous" statements like the example you posted. These statements can be part of the defense, i.e. the committee can ask questions about them and the candidate has to defend this thesis. In practice (insofar they do not relate to the thesis itself), this only happens when the committee runs out of "real" questions. This can happen because for the defense in the Netherlands a fixed amount of time is prescribed, which cannot be shortened.