Can there be paradigm shifts in philosophy like those described by Kuhn? And can these be evidenced in practice? Aristotle shaped the concept of First Philosophy, which was later equated with ontology or metaphysics and addresses being as such. However, this concept was precisely removed from the historical paradigm shift in the sense of Kuhn, making it more appealing for many today to replace philosophy with "postmetaphysical" thinking. Apel counters this with the thesis that the idea of First Philosophy itself must be historically thematized as a sequence of paradigms. It cannot be objectified from the outside as a "limited whole" (Wittgenstein) of being, but can only be reconstructed through transcendental-pragmatic reflection on the language-pragmatic conditions of universal, intersubjective validity of philosophical thought.