On the back of my teenage daughter's school textbook is a statement (by the publisher) "Do not over analyze". My daughter asked me what it meant but although I have come across this statement before I am not sure what it means - I think it means not to keep analyzing someone else's behaviour in order to find a motive but I'd like to be sure. In the case of philosophy aren't we meant to analyze thoroughly - so does one come to the point of over analyzing in this context?

I do not know what the subject matter of your daughter's textbook is, and do not know the context in which this statement occurs. But I can think of at least two ways in which it is possible to over analyze, even in the context of philosophical inquiry. First, by trying to acquire a precise understanding of the many different relations between various aspects of a phenomenon, we may divert attention from more important considerations like the social context in which a given phenomenon flourishes. Fastidious analyses of skepticism about other minds, or the justification of war, for example, may encourage one to treat certain positions more seriously than one ought to, given the worrisome way in which they function in actual social contexts. Second, the parts and the relations that characterize some phenomenon are so fuzzy and/or so complex that the very attempt at a complete analysis is bound to make things seem clearer or simpler than they really are. Beauty is something that can be over...