Not till my statement has developed its meaning farther is it determined as being true, false, or irrelevant to reality altogether. With some such reality any statement, in order to be counted true, must agree.
Pragmatism defines 'agreeing' to mean certain ways of 'working,' be they actual or potential.
Thus, for my statement 'the desk exists' to be true of a desk recognized as real by you, it must be able to lead me to shake your desk, to explain myself by words that suggest that desk to your mind, to make a drawing that is like the desk you see, etc. Only in such ways as this is there sense in saying it agrees with that reality, only thus does it gain for me the satisfaction of hearing you corroborate me. You cannot get at either the reference or the adaptation without using the notion of the workings. Surely for understanding what the word 'true' means as applied to a statement, the mention of such workings is indispensable. Our critics nevertheless call the workings inessential.