Final answer:
The Enlightenment period epitomized an intellectual tradition that favored logic, reason, and science over religious authority, emphasizing rationalism and empiricism to understand the world through systematic observation and evidence.
Step-by-step explanation:
An intellectual tradition of independent inquiry that emphasizes logic, reason, and science over religious authority is most closely associated with the Enlightenment. Rationalism, which suggests that knowledge comes from the use of logic rather than sensory experience, played a significant role during this period. Enlightenment thinkers were influenced by earlier scientific revolutions, and they applied scientific methods and principles to question traditional ideas, beliefs, and institutions.
They advocated for ideas such as liberty and the rejection of tyranny, and believed that modern society should be built upon rationality and efficiency rather than morality or tradition.
Empiricism, another important concept advanced during the Enlightenment by thinkers like Francis Bacon, stresses the importance of sensory experience and evidence through experimentation in gaining knowledge.
Empiricism, in combination with rationalism, shaped the development of the scientific method, which was an essential tool for Enlightenment scholars looking to understand the natural world and human institutions through systematic observation and evidence.