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My Latin is okay reading Cæsar and Livy, and I'm even (mostly) fine reading Cicero's vicious attacks on the enemies of whoever happened to hire him for the occasion. But when I come to philosophy and politics, it's all ratio this and res that and condiciones and præstat and cursus and so on and so forth, and I feel like I'm swimming around in a sea of so many possible meanings that I can't figure out a single one to hold on to.

Are there any a) introductions to reading philosophical/political Latin or b) philosophical/political writings in which the Latin is more easily decipherable than in other writings of their ilk?

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    I think Lucretius is a very clear writer.
    – fdb
    May 3, 2016 at 14:35
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    What kind of philosophy are you interested in? Stoicism? Seneca's Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium are written in plain speech and easier than Cicero (I think). Scholastic Latin is a beast of its own, but once you get beyond vocabulary it is remarkably easy.
    – brianpck
    May 3, 2016 at 14:37
  • @fdb I'll check him out, though the fact that it's poetry makes me a little nervous. (If you want to make this an answer, by the way, I'll upvote.)
    – Joel Derfner
    May 3, 2016 at 15:51
  • @brianpck Yeah, I think my regular vocabulary still needs work, so I'll leave Scholastic Latin for later, but I'll check out Seneca. If you want to make this an answer I'll upvote.
    – Joel Derfner
    May 3, 2016 at 15:52

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I find Cicero's De Natura Deorum fairly easily decipherable. The subject matter is less abstrusely technical than much philosophical writing, and the fact that it's written as a dialogue, or really a series of polemical speeches, also helps.

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