I enjoy reading and in many books I see references to philosophers: Sartre, Schopenhauer, Marx, Thomas of Aquino, Socrates and so on. I recognise their names, and often know the "main points" of their philosophy, but I still feel like I'm missing a lot of references.

What can I do to learn more about philosophy in general and famous philosopher's most known arguments in particular? I suspect reading their books without any pre-knowledge would be fruitless, or at least very boring. Is there a good recommended reading list where I can learn the basics of philosophy from the ground up?

After seeing some interest in philosophical discussion threads in this group last night, here's one for all of you.

Ever since I watched the movie Arrival and saw this quote, I've had this set of questions about humans and how our minds and our perception of reality is influenced by language. I'm going to throw some of those questions out below as a discussion starter and see where we end up. Sorry they're a bit general, feel free to restate any of them to be more specific or more interesting to you.

How does language limit us? Is our inability to really understand and explain concepts such as quantum reality, existence past an event horizon, or a scenario without spacetime (e.g. prior to the big bang) a product of the limitations of language or is it a fundamental limitation of humanity? Can language evolve to be able to capture such concepts? If language does evolve, how will it affect our perception of reality?