That's sad, although Dennett lived into his 80s, so not exactly cut short.
I'm no great fan of philosophers, but Daniel Dennett, like John Searle, recognized that philosophers quibbling about definitions of abstract concepts was not the sort of activity that would endear them to the grittier folk in the world.
From a speech he gave, quoted in
Quartz magazine: One of the most famous living philosophers says much of philosophy today is “self-indulgent”:
“A great deal of philosophy doesn’t really deserve much of a place of the world,” he says. “Philosophy in some quarters has become self-indulgent, clever play in a vacuum that’s not dealing of problems of any intrinsic interest.”
Much if not all philosophical work in analytic metaphysics, for example, is “willfully cut off from any serious issues,” says Dennett. The problem, he explains, is that clever students looking to show off their skills “concoct cute counterarguments that require neither technical training nor empirical knowledge.” These then build off each other and invade the journals, and philosophical discourse.
My own view of philosophy and its general lack of worth (comparable to astrology and theology) is that too many philosophers appeared then (and now?) to believe that the important activity is to ask questions. No, the important activity is to identify important, interesting or significant questions
and answer them. The philosophers too often forgot the need both for questions to have value and the answers to be found (or at least approached).
Philosophers' debate over variants of the so-called "trolley problem" and its variants (a bad act to achieve a good outcome) exemplified their lack of utility. An unrealistic self-posed problem that you can't answer?
– fail!
So bravo to Dennett and the like who aim for interesting and potentially applicable analysis and inspire others.