APS rejects both mechanistic reductionism and anti-mechanistic holism.
Mechanisms matter because biological organisation is realised through concrete causal processes. Metabolism, signalling, regulation, development, and repair all depend upon identifiable mechanisms.
However, mechanisms become biologically meaningful only within the organisational systems whose persistence they support.
Mechanisms therefore contribute to explanation without exhausting it.
APS treats mechanisms as components of organised persistence rather than as complete explanations of life.