The article explores the historical transformation of the doctrine of innate knowledge through a comparative analysis of Plato’s concept of ἐπιστήμη ἔνουσα and its reinterpretation by the Cambridge Platonists in the seventeenth century. The discussion begins with the Meno paradox, which poses a fundamental epistemological dilemma: how can one inquire into something completely unknown? Plato resolves this problem by introducing the theory of recollection (ἀνάμνησις), according to which the human soul already possesses latent knowledge acquired prior to embodiment. This allows for three possible models of innatism: prenatalism, which points to the pre-existence of the soul; the “innateness of state”, referring to latent cognitive capacities, and the “innateness of content”, implying the presence of innate truths. The paper traces how these models reemerge in early modern philosophy, where innatism becomes a crucial point of dispute between rationalists and empiricists. Focusing on Henry More, John Smith, and Nathanael Culverwell, the article shows how the Cambridge Platonists reinterpret Platonic themes within the framework of Christian metaphysics, replacing prenatalism with a dispositional understanding of reason as inherently oriented toward truth, morality, and divine knowledge. Their notion of innate ideas refers not to explicit knowledge but to an internal cognitive predisposition awakened through experience. Ultimately, the study argues that Cambridge Platonism occupies a mediating position between Cartesian cognitive fundamentalism and Leibnizian latent innatism, thereby shaping a distinctive path in the development of early modern epistemology and leaving a substantial intellectual legacy for later philosophical thought.