Because the field is so broad and often highly technical I strongly recommend avoiding getting rabbit-holed. Focus on breath rather than depth.
Survey the landscape first - get a hand-wavey high level understanding on the two primary schools today: analytic vs continental philosophy. Then study each one’s history and origins.
This will give you high level introduction of the landscape across the various epochs, the big ideas and their main purveyors.
At the end of that you should have a good idea which philosopher/era/ideas interest you most. Only then consider diving deeper.
Specifically because you speak of mental models and “developing a personal philosophy” (and because you are on this website I am making some assumptions about your background ans familiarity with computer science/information theory) I also recommend Luciano Floridi. The Logic of Information: A Theory of Philosophy as Conceptual Design
Survey the landscape first - get a hand-wavey high level understanding on the two primary schools today: analytic vs continental philosophy. Then study each one’s history and origins.
Read this book (also available as YouTube videos I think): https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Book-Ideas-Simply-Explaine...
This will give you high level introduction of the landscape across the various epochs, the big ideas and their main purveyors.
At the end of that you should have a good idea which philosopher/era/ideas interest you most. Only then consider diving deeper.
Specifically because you speak of mental models and “developing a personal philosophy” (and because you are on this website I am making some assumptions about your background ans familiarity with computer science/information theory) I also recommend Luciano Floridi. The Logic of Information: A Theory of Philosophy as Conceptual Design
https://www.amazon.com/Logic-Information-Theory-Philosophy-C...