Why did Noam Chomsky call the question of language learning “Plato’s problem”?

Noam Chomsky used the term “Plato’s problem” to describe the fundamental challenge of explaining how children acquire complex language and concepts with remarkable speed and ease, despite receiving minimal instruction or evidence during their early years.1

The name is a reference to Plato’s dialogue the Meno, which explores how an uneducated child can solve geometrical problems when prompted, even without formal training or background in mathematics.1

Chomsky argued that because children seem to know far more than they could have possibly been taught, much of this knowledge must be innate. This inference is known as the argument from the “poverty of the stimulus.” Unlike Plato, however, Chomsky viewed solving this problem as a task for cognitive science and linguistics, rather than a purely philosophical inquiry. He proposed that humans are born with an innate Universal Grammar, which provides the necessary framework for language acquisition.12