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A Million Little Gods: A podcast on the consolation of uncertainty. It's about being of two—or more—minds about things and being okay with that. Hosted by Aaron Gowen of the Institute for English and American Studies at the University of Hamburg. amillionlittlegods.comThemes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ philosophical uncertainty, selfhood, consciousness • race as social/scientific category; genetics, eugenics, Kant • language and meaning, linguistics • statistics, Bayesian modeling, machine learning • moral judgment in culture • religion, Thomism vs modernity • political history, Argentina/Perón, ideologyThis podcast blends philosophy, cultural criticism, and linguistics with an ongoing interest in how people make sense of the world when certainty is unavailable. Hosted by an academic linguist, it often builds long-form “books” that circle foundational questions—what a self is, what counts as science, and how categories take shape in thought and society—while also experimenting with the podcast medium through audio-essay and radio-play techniques.
Across the episodes, recurring themes include the tension between empirical methods and moral or metaphysical commitments; the way language, rhetoric, and institutions shape what communities treat as real; and how concepts such as race, identity, and human difference are constructed, defended, revised, or rejected. Conversations with philosophers, historians of science, journalists, and scientists explore topics like natural kinds, social construction, the limits of reductionism, and the practical consequences of using contested categories in medicine, policy, and everyday life. There is also sustained attention to statistics and modeling—Bayesian reasoning, machine learning, and uncertainty—used both as technical tools and as metaphors for how humans infer patterns from incomplete evidence.
Alongside these analytic threads, the show frequently situates ideas within historical and political narratives, including modern ideological conflicts, labor and class politics, and the relationship between religious traditions and modern philosophical movements. Occasional specials broaden the palette into moral judgment in art and public life, and into foodways and indigenous plant traditions, while maintaining the central preoccupation with how values, beliefs, and facts interact.
